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Boston : Liqht^Hbrtc. 



THE 



STRANGER'S GIFT, 



CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S PRESENT. 



EDITED BY 



HERMANN BOKUM, 



Instructor in Harvard University. 






BOSTON : 

LIGHT AND HORTON. 

1836. 



.GvBfci 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1835, by Light 
& HoRTON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massa- 
chusetts. 



Press of Light and Horton. 
Samuel Harris, Printer. 



CONTENTS. 

Dedication, 7 

Introduction, 9 

The Arrival, 12 

The American Germans, 23 

The American Dutch, 40 

The Environs of the Mohawk, 54 

New England, 66 

The German Emigrant, 80 

The Stranger's Hope, 88 

Conclusion, 101 



2Suc!) }n QtUUtn Inar mefn f)bcSstcr W^umbcI), 
3Euc!) ^u cxQttnn toat mem Ictjter ^bjecfe. 
(52^cr nicf)t IJ10 Welt m semen JFretmtren sfeijt, 
ITertifent nfc!)t, tiass tjfe SS^elt bon fi)m erfafjre. 



Goethe's Tasso. 



THE STRANGER'S GIFT. 



INTRODUCTION. 

It is probably known to many of my readers, that 
in Germany, Christmas time is rendered peculiarly 
interesting and delightful, by the combination of 
many religious and social blessings and enjoyments ; 
that almost every family has its Christmas tree cov- 
ered with a hundred lights and many beautiful gifts, 
and surrounded generally by a little group of happy 
beings, and that friends and neighbors with holy 
rapture then remind each other of the blessed tidings 
that ''the Saviour is born." These and many 
similar customs which have been handed down 
from antiquity, and preserved by the kindly disposi- 
tion of the people, are probably generally known ; 
but only he whose childhood has been passed in Ger- 
many, can know how fondly the heart loves to dwell 
again and again on these successive celebrations. 
1 



10 THE stranger's GIFT. 

The time may have gone by, when you counted 
the number of your years by the several Christmas 
trees, which, as if by enchantment, flourished every 
3^ear with new hghts and new gifts, but not so the 
childUke spirit which a parent's love then planted in 
your hearts. The mother's eye, in which the reflec- 
tion of the child's joy shone with increased splendor — 
as on the smooth surface of the lake, the image seems 
more beautiful than the object which it represents, — 
that eye may have closed forever ; but the scenes 
on which it once smiled, and the intensity of affec- 
tion which these scenes served to excite and foster 
in the child, have not passed away. They have 
pervaded his whole being; they have filled him 
with enthusiasm for every good and perfect deed, 
and — however lonely he may appear — they are his 
constant and delightful companions, which seem to 
become dearer to him in the same degree as the 
world around him is incapable of enjoying them 
with him. 

As the dangerous roads and steep precipices 
which threatened the wanderer on his ascending 
course, appear like smooth paths on the margin of 
beautiful rivers and lakes, when he has reached 
the top of the high mountain, so does each new 
anniversary of these domestic festivals become a 
season of serene repose, in which all the joys of 
your past life, and the many sorrows which have 
been tarned into joys, present themselves; and the 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

simple fact that they are jtast seems to confer on 
them new Ufe and beauty. Desnous of shadowing 
forth to others, by some outward act, the hap- 
piness which you yourself enjoy, you make again 
some humble gift the faint emblem by which you 
express to the friends who have sped your home- 
ward course, how much you owe to their love. 

It is to recollections like these that the Stranger's 
Gift owes its origin. It is offered to those who 
have cheered the stranger's path through the for- 
eign land, and who, in return, will kindly receive 
this token that they are remembered by him. He 
approaches them once more as a stranger^ since at 
the time of Christmas, he can only feel at home 
among the scenes of the past ; yet he indulges the 
hope that this Gift will serve to strengthen the 
ties by which he is united to them, that it will 
bring him near to many a kindred mind, to whom 
he is now a stranger in the literal sense of the 
word, and finally, that the spirit in which this 
Gift is presented will testify to the truth that we all 
are but strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 



THE ARRIVAL. 



Sturzen wir uns in das Rauschen der Zeit, 

Ins Rollen der Begebenheit ! 

Da mag denn Schmerz und Genuss, 

Gelingen und Verdruss, 

Mit einander wechseln wie es kann, 

Nur rastlos betliatigt sich der Mann. Goethe's Faust. 



It was a dark and stormy night of the autumnj 
182- when by the welcome sound of land ! land ! 
the crew and passengers of a Hamburg vessel, 
bound to the harbor of New York, were joyfully 
assembled on the deck. Not satisfied with the 
certainty that they had arrived m sight of the 
continent, many of the passengers seemed to rival 
each other in eagerly inquiring, who first pro- 
claimed the joyful tidings, what ocular proof 
might confirm to them this unexpected news, or 
how great a distance yet separated them from 
the land ; and even the most surly of the 
crew seemed softened by the joyful excitement, 
and condescended to satisfy those to whose in- 
quiries he had many a time replied by sending 
them down to the steerage. Gradually, however, 
this tumultuous joy subsided, the voices were 
hushed, and most of the passengers seemed desirous 
of dwelling on the peculiar associations which that 
little light in the far distance, "the star in the 



THE ARRIVAL. 13 

ocean," had suggested to them. As that hght now 
appeared, and now again vanished, with every 
wave by which the vessel was tossed up or down, 
so did the feeUngs and views which it had excited 
in the breasts of the emigrants change and fluc- 
tuate unceasingly. 

Though the number of Germans who had come 
over in that vessel was but small, the nature of 
their occupations, and of their intellectual cultiva- 
tion, was probably far more different than is gener- 
ally the case in those vessels which are almost 
filled with emigrants. The impressions, therefore, 
which a scene like the one referred to produced on 
them, after that first moment of general rejoicing, 
were almost as various as their different modes of 
life. There is one whom, from his dress and 
accoutrements, you would judge to be a sportsman 
by profession : he has stretched himself on the 
deck, reclining his head very unceremoniously on 
the body of his dog, Avho is to protect him against 
the savages in the American wilds, and to afford 
him support by hunting the beasts of the forest, if 
the importations from Europe should not prove 
sufficient. His head is filled with wild and pleas- 
ing anticipations, and the very indistinctness with 
which they present themselves to his mind, seems 
to form the principal cause of his joy. His foohsh 
enterprise will hardly call forth a smile from you. 
But there are others who wiU better reward your 
1* 



14 

attention. The thoughts of that merchant, whom, 
from his pecuharly marked features, dark coun- 
tenance, and the quick and calculating eye, you 
would think to be a lineal descendant of Abraham, 
have returned into their old channel, and with more 
comfort than ever does he take the last price-cur- 
rent from his pocket, and compare its data with 
the amount which he has laid out in the enterprise 
which now carries him to America ; and the glit- 
tering and bright appearance of the light, which 
the vessel is now rapidly approaching, reminds him 
of the golden earnings which this adventurous pas- 
sage of the Atlantic is to secure to him. Little is 
he disturbed by the loud and animated conversa- 
tion of the peasant's family near him. It would 
hardly have left him unmoved at a moment of less 
excitement, for he is a kind-hearted man, and 
has often ministered to their little wants in the 
course of the voyage : at present, however, his 
mercantile speculations do not admit of any other 
thought. That peasant's family consists of father, 
mother, and seven children, who, as they readily 
tell you, if you speak to them, have left their 
native country on account of the multiplicity of 
oppressions to which they were there exposed. 
They are all honest, and strong, and willing to 
work ; but their want of pecuniary means has 
troubled them greatly during the whole of their 
voyage. Father and mother are far advanced iu 



THE AKRIVAL. 15 

years, and therefore not without anticipations of 
physical evils which may await them in the foreign 
clime, yet they console each other with the recol- 
h ction, that they have not come over for their own 
sakes, but that their children might enjoy the 
blessings of a free country, and have the produce 
of their labors secured to them. 

Such, and more various still were the thoughts and 
feelings which occupied the little group of Germans, 
while a favorable breeze wafted them nearer to 
the long-desired shore, and the little ''sea star" 
vanished before the light of the rising sun. The 
multitude and variety of objects which were now 
presented to them in rapid succession, attracted 
their attention so greatly that they had little time 
for composed thought, until they had approached 
the wharves of New York, and in the crowd which 
seemed to welcome their arrival, took a hasty fare- 
well of each other. 

- It was a few days after the scene just described, 
when one of the Germans who had arrived in that 
vessel was walking in the streets of Philadelphia, 
on one of those beautiful autumnal mornings, which 
in America give an almost unequalled charm to the 
parting year. It was a Sabbath morning. After 
having been entirely without the elevating influence 
of social worship during the whole time of his 
voyage, he had felt deeply desirous of attending 
the morning service in an Americo-German church. 



16 THE stranger's GIFT. 

The novelty of the scenes around him threatened, 
however, to prevent his indulging in the serious 
reflections which his pecuhar situation naturally 
excited; for every new object seemed to him to sug- 
gest some inference concerning the habits and the 
character of the people. When his eye dwelt on 
the regular and simple structure of the private 
buildings, and he compared them with the splendor 
of the public edifices, he ascribed this contrast to 
the democratic principle which is hostile to every 
external distinction. He even welcomed this same- 
ness, however wearisome it might be to the eye, 
since he regarded it merely as an outward type 
of that political equality, to which the Americans 
in a great measure, he thought, owe their present 
greatness. And when the streets became more and 
more crowded, and he saw the well dressed and 
sober looking multitudes, who, like him, were 
obviously proceeding to the house of the Lord, he 
judged from them of the general character of the 
people. 

In these, and many other premature, though 
perhaps not entirely unfounded conclusions, he Avas 
interrupted by the familiar sounds of his native 
language, in which he was addressed by the peasant 
who had come over with him from Germany. The 
country in which both of them had just entered as 
strangers, became of course the subject of conver- 
sation ; but even the youthful and enthusiastic 



THE ARRIVAL. 17 

German was startled at the emotion with which the 
peasant rephed to the question, how he was pleased 
with America. 

'' Oh, we are poor," exclaimed he, " and our 
prospects are very dark ; but we are no longer un- 
happy. There is a feeling of joy in us which is 
inexpressible; and it seems as if the very air in 
this country were lighter than anywhere else. We 
feel so free ! " 

His countryman was about to express his sym- 
pathy with his companion, and to remind him, in a 
friendly spirit, that in his new relations, he ought 
not to be satisfied with this vague feeling of free- 
dom and independence, but to endeavor to become 
a freeman^ in the true sense of the word, when 
their attention was attracted by the tones of an 
organ, issuing forth from a large edifice at which 
they had then arrived. A hymn was played 
which, in America, seems to have become natur- 
alized under the singular name of "Old Hun- 
dred," but which to a German is familiarly known 
as one of the best compositions of that man of 
God, Martin Luther. It produced a thrilling effect 
on our German friends, by the many associations 
which it excited, and without further parley, they 
followed the well known sounds. 

It is but little known or felt what a powerful and 
beneficial influence a foreign religious service has 
upon the character of the emigrant. If you should 



18 

sometimes enter such places of worship, and see " 
the thoughtful and serious countenances with which 
they listen to their preacher, now bending far over 
the gallery, that not a single word of the sermon 
may escape them, and now slowly rising in order 
to prevent the slightest wandering of their thoughts ; 
if, on such occasions — unlike the custom of most 
of the American churches — you should hear the 
whole congregation joining in the singing of a Ger- 
man hymn, and by the heaven-ascending tones of 
their voices taking each of them a part in realizing 
the object for which they have come there, you 
would almost feel inclined to the opinion that there 
is a deeper spirit of devotion prevailing in these little 
foreign flocks, than is generally the case in your 
own churches; nor are you perhaps greatly mis- 
taken. It is not only the consciousness that religion, 
^' the home of the spirit," is now their only home, 
which serves to produce a deep and salutary influ- 
ence on them; there are many peculiar circum- 
stances combining, which serve to excite a deep, 
solemn feeling in their hearts. Sometimes it is 
the mere fact, that though in a foreign land, they 
are enjoying religious instruction in their own 
native tongue ; or it is some simple, well known 
adage, peculiar to them, by which religious truth is 
brought home to their hearts with almost irresistible 
force ; or some allegories and pictures borrowed 
from their native country ; or some striking refer- 



THE ARRIVAL. 19 

ence to certain customs and habits, which, in a 
christian point of view, distinguish them favorably 
from other nations. It is by these and many other 
means, which he alone has at his command, that 
a faithful foreign divine may succeed in exciting 
peculiarly deep and lasting convictions, when ad- 
dressing his countrymen on a foreign shore. 

Our friends richly experienced the powerful 
effects of these spiritual blessings, and when they 
met again after the service, the old peasant said 
with deep feeling, that he could not realize the 
thought that he had actually entered a foreign 
land. 

It is not, however, the German service in the 
Lutheran and Reformed churches alone, which in 
Philadelphia has produced a most favorable influ- 
ence on the German emigrants, and has made them 
almost forget that they have left their father-land 
behind; there has, likewise, some attention been 
paid to their intellectual culture. The German 
school connected with the Lutheran church, kept 
by an experienced teacher, and carefully fostered 
by the Lutheran divines connected with that 
church, is in a flourishing condition ; the German 
Charitable Society has procured a very select 
library of 5000 volumes, consisting of the standard 
works in English and German literature, which is 
every year more or less increased, and in the 
Foreign Library there is another small, though very 



20 THE stranger's GIFT. 

fine collection of German books. It is by such 
judicious steps, that the European emigrant gradu- 
ally ceases to be a foreigner to the land of his 
adoption; it is by furnishing him with the neces- 
sary religious and intellectual instruction in his 
own native language, as long as he is yet incapable 
of understanding any other, while at the same time 
every effort is used to teach him the language, and 
with it the views and feelings of his American 
brethren, — it is by such means alone, that the emi- 
grant will be truly naturalized. Suffer him to look 
back with a feeling of love and longing to the 
land of his birth, and fear not to foster that feeling 
by allowing him to serve the Lord in his own man- 
ner, but teach him likewise to implant the same 
principle in bis children, who are united to this 
hemisphere by the same ties which bind him to the 
other; teach him that though he may not hand 
down the name of the country to which he once 
belonged to his posterity, he may leave them a 
name by which all nations shall finally know each 
other. 

Though in a somewhat different manner, similar 
trains of thought had suggested themselves to the 
young stranger, whom we have introduced to the 
acquaintance of our readers, when, in the afternoon 
of the Sabbath referred to, he had been desirous of 
attending the foreign service in the little Swedish 
church near the Delaware, — the oldest house of 



THE ARRIVAL. 21 

worship in the city of Philadelphia. The ancient 
and somewhat decayed appearance of the little 
brick building, when contrasted with the far more 
modern steeple, bore testimony to its antiquity, as 
far as that term can be applied to anything in 
America, and as a monument of the past, made 
a pleasing impression on the stranger. In one 
respect, however, he was disappointed. The 
descendants of the Swedes who originally built 
that church, had intermingled so entirely with the 
American population that even the Swedish lan- 
guage was unknown to them. The service was 
performed in English. In the interior of the build- 
ing, the Swedish countenances of the winged 
cherubs opposite the pulpit, supporting a volume in 
which the Lord's prayer was inscribed in the 
Swedish language, seemed to be the only remains 
of the foreigner who once worshipped, there ; and 
but little more could our German friend discover on 
the cemetery which surroimded the church. It 
was but Avith difficulty that he decyphered a few 
Swedish names on tomb-stones which were cov- 
ered with the moss of a hundred years. "If such 
is the fate of the stranger in this land," said he 
mourning to himself, " it were better to relinquish 
all attempts at preserving our worship. We also 
shall dwindle away as the Swedes have before us, 
and our very children will feel as strangers towards 
us." It was, however, but a short time that he suf- 
2 



22 THE stranger's gift. 

fered himself to be carried away by these sad re- 
flections. " It is but to our perishing bodies, and to 
the name which they bear, that they will be stran- 
gers ; for if they have served here indeed their 
father's God, they will be his friends and our 
friends, forever. Even now, with the eye of faith, 
we may see these graves opening, and multitudes 
issuing forth, who have served here the Lord in 
spirit and in truth. We may see them approach- 
ing the mercy-seat, and hear a mighty voice say- 
ing — "The Lord preserveth the stranger." And 
many blessed spirits who have been near them 
during their short earthly course, are following in 
their heaven-bound path ; and again the voice is 
heard, saying — "I was a stranger, and ye took 
me in." 

More edified by these reflections than by the 
English sermon, which in part had been unintelli- 
gible to him, the young stranger returned to his 
new home full of bright hopes and prospects, and 
with the intense desire of acting his part in realizing 
them. 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS.* 



Jeder, der in einer Sache den ersten Anfang macht, oder, nach dem spriichwort- 
lichen Ausdruck, das Eis bricht, hat das unveiausserliche Recht einzelne Fehler 
zu begehen ; d. i. kein billig Denkender wird ihm dergleichen hoch anrechnen. — 
Schloetzzr's Nestor. 

Every man who makes a beginning in any matter, or, according to the proverbial 
expression, " breaks the ice," lias the inalienable right to commit some faults j 
that is, no fair-minded person will bring him to a too strict account. 



You have probably, kind reader, asked occasion- 
ally to be admitted to the little circular aperture 
of some popular panorama, and with the assist- 
ance of the experienced interpreter, whose art, 
in Germany, is in particular demand at Christmas 
time, you have seen the most beautiful represen- 
tations of cities and landscapes, so quickly passing 
your view that it was almost entirely out of your 
power to ascertain the truth of the descriptions 
you received from its enterprising proprietor. In- 
deed, the latter seemed to know his tale so well, 
that you might see him count the number of those 
who, at your right and left, were waiting for ad- 
mission, without being at a loss even for a single 



* A great portion of the matter contained in this chapter was laid before the 
American Institute of Instruction, at their last session, and some other passages 
have been taken from a Review written by the author, and published in the 
seventh volume of the Christian Spectator. The modifications which some of the 
views tlier* expressed have undergone, are partly to be ascribed to the connection 
in which they are now presented to the public. 



24 



word. How dissatisfied did you feel, when finally 
the little window was closed, and you found your- 
self almost incapable of recalling any of the dimin- 
utive panoramas which you had seen ; and how 
readily would you have doubled the fee, in order 
to see it over again, if such indulgence had not in- 
terfered with the rights of your neighbors. 

It is with a similar feeling that I now look back 
upon the many and various views which America 
has presented to me ; and if it were possible, I 
likewise would willingly go once more over the 
same ground, before I describe any part of it. 
There is one picture, however, which, like the 
paintings of the ancient masters, seems to have 
gained in distinctness and vividness in the course of 
time, and of which I shall now attempt to draw 
the most striking features. 

Climate and habit combine, in Germany, to 
make social pedestrian excursions an agreeable 
and very general means of becoming acquainted 
with the country, with the people and with your- 
self, while in America, excessive heat and con- 
tinual changes of weather, but particularly the in- 
fluence of the political and mercantile element on 
the social character of the people, prevent them 
from enjoying, in any great degree, the physical 
and intellectual advantages which a walk of several 
hundred miles affords. It was by pedestrian excur- 
sions that Thales, Pythagoras, and all the sages 
of antiquity, gained new wisdom, and the apostles, 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 25 

I doubt not, new strength and zeal for the holy 
work. It is likewise pedestrianism, I venture to 
add, and other hardening exercises, by which our 
modern sages and divines might be benefited, at 
least as far as their physical welfare is concerned, 
if they would practice them at an early period 
of their lives. There is a reviving power in the 
feeling with which you cast off for a time the 
regular and ever-returning cares which from day to 
day have fettered you down. The very recollection 
of it fills your breast with youthful vigor, and by 
arming you with new strength for the discharge 
of your duties, teaches you at the same time how 
to enjoy them. 

It was on one of these extensive pedestrian ex- 
cursions that I first became acquainted with the 
German settlements in the interior of Pennsylvania. 
They are called German because the land was 
originally occupied by German emigrants, and be- 
cause those who now own it are descended from 
them, and are thought to retain the use of the 
German language, though in many parts of the 
interior a native of Germany will find it very diffi- 
cult to recognise his mother-tongue. But a very 
small portion have carefully fostered those principles 
of religious and intellectual cultivation which they 
imbibed in their own country. The greater portion 
have not only been deprived of the light which their 
forefathers enjoyed, but have been likewise excluded 
2# 



26 THE stranger's gift. 

ill a great measure from the influences which 
operate favorably on the rehgious, moral and intel- 
lectual state of the American people. 

It is well known that the great mass of the first 
German settlers consisted of redemptioners, who 
fled from the oppression to which they had been 
subject in their native country. It is also known 
that by perseverance and industry, they succeeded 
in benefiting the country which had received them 
hospitably, and that they obtained a rich return 
from the produce of their agricultural labors. But 
it is far less known how little their religious and 
moral state corresponds to their physical well- 
being. The frequent and entire want of instruc- 
tion, the necessity of gaining their livelihood by 
great and uninterrupted efibrts, and the slow but 
certain reward which they obtained from the 
ground they cultivated, has been the cause that 
they seem to have become incapable of raising their 
eyes from that ground to Him who gave them both 
to will and to do according " to his good pleasure." 
The situation of their ministers almost prevents 
their usefulness, when they have to attend to the 
spiritual wants of six or seven congregations ; and 
attempts at extending to them other means of 
instruction have but too often met with decided 
opposition, and have sometimes excited the most 
unexpected and unaccountable suspicions. A very 
devoted and benevolent friend of mine, for instance. 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 27 

endeavored sometime since to form a Sabbath 
school near the banks of the Lecha. For a long 
time he could not ascertain why his efforts were so 
Httle encouraged, until he finally was informed that 
he was suspected of forming this school with a 
view of increasing the tolls of the bridge over which 
the children had to pass. The state of morality, it 
may be easily imagined, cannot be a very high and 
devoted one where religion has so little practical 
influence. Though the love of self does in some 
cases apparently supply the want of the purer prin- 
ciples of a heart-felt religion, though — thanks to 
habit and constitution — they fulfil conscientiously 
many of the common duties of life, there is yet no 
pledge sufficiently sacred by which they might be 
prevented from trespassing as often as opportunity 
and inclination should tempt. It is not the law of 
God, but the law of man which they respect ; and 
he who does not incur the penalty of the latter may 
habitually sin against the former, and yet enjoy the 
respect and support of his neighbors. In short, we 
are ever and ever reminded here of the poet, who 
well observes, that 

" Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

When you enter the sequestered valleys, and 
approach the habitations of the early settlers, where 



28 



every new view presents an enchanting picture, 
and every step suggests a poetical thought, as long 
as you are only occupied with inanimate nature, 
the almost entire want of elevation in the character 
of the inhabitants of these beautiful regions forms 
but too sad and striking a contrast. 

This general want of moral excellence, however, 
becomes most obvious to the eye of the stranger, 
when it is openly exhibited by those, whose duty it 
is to be the foremost in opposing the current; when 
the intemperate and the dissolute foreigner is en« 
trusted with the education of the young, and when 
thus his own vices are engrafted on the susceptible 
minds of his pupils. Even now you may imagine, 
that you see one of these unfortunate beings slowly 
moving along on the hilly road. He seems uncer- 
tain whether he is to enter the village before him, 
when suddenly his eyes meet with an advertisement 
which he sees nailed over the door of the little 
village-church. A teacher is wanted, he finds, who 
is able to read and to write ; the committee of ex- 
amination is to meet at nine o'clock in the school- 
room. Just then he hears the village clock striking, 
and without further hesitation he enters the room 
appointed. After he has given them a fictitious 
account of his own merits, a newspaper is handed 
to him, which he reads without difficulty; he is 
then made to copy a certain portion of it, and 
satisfies the examinators beyond description. They 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 29 

are about to consult whether they ought to give 
him the appointment, when he inquires with a 
satirical smile, whether their children are not to be 
instructed in cyphering. "Certainly," replies one; 
"Most undoubtedly," another. "Then please to 
examine me on the Rule of Three." " The rule of 
three?" asks the speaker, with a ghastly counte- 
nance, and moves slowly backward. " The rule of 
three ! " re-echoes the whole council; and succeed- 
ing in gaining an advance of their leader, the 
candidate is finally left alone with the children, 
who have been merry spectators of the scene. 

Where cases of this kind are of frequent occur- 
rence, where ignorance and immorality, when armed 
with impudence and protected by hypocrisy, may 
obtain the most unlimited influence over the minds 
of parents and children, there it is a matter of con- 
gratulation, that the schools are only open during 
three or four of the winter months, since during the 
remainder of the year, the labor of most of the 
children is wanted on the farms of their parents ; 
nay, it may be considered a fortunate circumstance, 
that many of the Germans are opposed to having 
their children read and write, because they think 
that it opens the way to every kind of iniquity. At 
the same time, however, there is much reason for 
sorrow on account of this strong opposition to every 
attempt at introducing among them a sound and 
general system of education. 



30 THE stranger's GIFT. 

But a few years ago an attempt was made in 
Pennsylvania to gain the influence of the rich Ger- 
man farmers in favor of a system of taxation, as it 
has been estabhshed in some of the New England 
States. '' If we have a general system of taxation," 
was their short but logical reply, '' the children of the 
rich and the children of the poor will have the same 
means of being educated. It is likewise certain, 
that the children of the poor will have time to go to 
school, while the children of the rich are employed 
eight months out of twelve on their farms. The 
children of the poor therefore will obtain three times 
as much learning as the children of the rich. In 
the course of time they will be sent to Congress, 
they will obtain all the good offices, and finally will 
rule over the children of the rich. — This shall never 
be the case !" 

If after these preliminaries you should yet be 
desirous, my reader, to become more intimately 
acquainted with them, — if you should wish to visit 
them at their fire-side, and to listen to their social 
efi'usions, you will be still more confirmed in the 
conviction, that the state of the great majority of 
the American Germans does not admit of any ex- 
tended comparison with the general character of 
either America or Germany. Although the little 
cottage which you are about to enter is unadorned 
and even unpainted from without, and generally 
thrown into shade by the spacious and extensive 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 31 

barn, which you see by its side, you will find that 
its interior is not without all the substantial physical 
comforts to which you may have been accustomed. 
Nor is the reception with which you meet, — 
however rough and unceremonious, — wanting in 
heart-felt hospitality. Soon, however, you are 
strongly reminded, that in one sense of the word at 
least, you are not at home. The wild hunter, you 
hear, has last night been holding his spectral chase 
through the forest, and has made himself known to 
the inhabitants of the cottage by a strange clapping 
of the window-shutters, nor has the horse-shoe which 
you saw fixed over the out-door proved a sufficient 
protection against the visitors of the Blocksberg. 
Finally, a blue light which has been seen for several 
successive evenings in an adjoining meadow, seems 
to suggest very naturally the question, whether the 
inmates of the house should sally forth that even- 
ing, and dig for secret treasures. The consultation, 
however, is interrupted by the sudden indisposition 
of one of the family. The powwow-physician is 
called, for Indian and German superstitions have 
become intimately associated in the minds of your 
hosts. On a tripod in one corner of the room, 
pieces of wood are placed according to the peculiar 
laws of the doctor's art ; and by the burning of a 
charm, the patient is to be freed from every 
pain. 



32 



The amusement, however, which at first these 
strange proceedings afforded to you, is soon sup- 
planted by feeUngs of sorrow and compassion, 
which the conduct of 3^our hosts naturally excites 
in you, and you turn round to the book-shelf, to 
seek there relief from the humiliating trains of 
thought which these occurrences have suggested to 
you. The Bible, some books on dreaming and 
witchcraft, and one or two German newspapers, 
form the whole stock. In glancing at the latter, 
you meet with another piece of Americo-German- 
ism — German words with English terminations, 
or the reverse. Their intercourse with Germany, 
however, has obviously been interrupted for many 
years, since the few new thoughts, which the pro- 
gress in science and art has conveyed to them, are 
entirely expressed in the English language. To this 
circumstance, and to the fact, that the language 
which the American Germans speak is not a writ- 
ten one, its utter want of euphony is to be ascribed. 
Every written language has peculiar laws of forma- 
tion and sound, according to which, terms which 
are taken from other languages may become natu- 
ralized. It is very different with a language which 
is spoken only in a community in which there is 
no general intercourse. The elements which they 
borrow from other languages or dialects remain 
foreign ingredients, both in regard to structure and 
sound. 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 33 

But to return to our newspaper. It was at first 
only the strange mixture of German and English 
words and terminations which attracted your atten- 
tion more than the matter itself. But how great is 
your astonishment, when you find that the political 
news which the paper contains, is the very opposite 
of what you happen to have read the very same day 
in an English morning paper. Where such glaring 
deceptions can be practised, you have reason to con- 
clude that even those who know how to read, are 
greatly in danger of becoming the tools of designing 
men ; and a second glance at the paper seems to 
establish this fact. You meet there with a petition 
which opposes the interests of education, and yet 
many of the signers have been compelled to make 
three crosses, because they are unable to sign their 
names ! 

It is now time, however, to leave the cottage. 
You part from your kind-hearted hosts with a hearty 
shake of the hand, and gladly accept a seat in the 
wagon of an old farmer from a neighboring settle- 
ment, whose company, you have reason to hope, 
will be a source of instruction to you. At first, 
however, you are not successful. In vain do you 
endeavor to imitate the compound of several low 
German dialects in which he addresses you, and 
which, from an entire want of cultivation, has so 
much degenerated, and has become so greatly alloyed 
with the colloquial English, that frequently it is 
3 



34 THE stranger's gift. 

almost wholly unintelligible to a German directly 
from Europe, and accustomed only to the High 
German, and to one or two of the Low German 
dialects. To speak in the language of Shakspeare, 
they seem to have been at a great feast of languages 
and to have stolen the scraps. Having failed en- 
tirely in your attempt, and finding the farmer as 
unable to understand your High German, you are 
compelled to have recourse to the English language, 
though it may prove but a very imperfect medium. 

Your new acquaintance now proves to be much 
more communicative than you have generally 
found the Germans on your tour. You justly 
praise his horse, and he speaks to you in return of 
forty other horses, which he has in his stable, of 
the land which he owns, and which extends as far 
as you can see, and of his grown up children, for 
whom he has bought several other farms in his im- 
mediate vicinity. Finally, however, the conversa- 
tion takes a political turn, and he proclaims himself 
as a thorough-going Anti- Jackson man. You had 
expected the contrary, since most of the Germans 
were in favor of General Jackson's administration, 
although the veto which he had put on the United 
States Bank had given rise to much difference of 
opinion. 

"It is probably on account of the Veto, that you 
are opposed to the administration?" 

'^Veto! What Veto?" 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 35 

" The President's Veto against the United States 
Bank." 

''United States Bank! What United States 
Bank?" 

He had never heard of either, partly because he, 
hke many other Germans, had a great prejudice 
against paper money, and partly because he could 
not read. 

" And were you then in favor of John Quincy 
Adams 7" 

"No, indeed! No one who has had anything 
to do with the stamp act ought to be elected Presi- 
dent." 

"With the stamp act !— You are mistaken; it 
was John Adams who once thought of introducing 
stamped paper." 

" John Adams !" exclaimed the politician, with a 
smile which was intended to express his conviction 
how well he was informed. " And do I not know, 
that this is the same man, and that he has only put 
in duincy in order to make people believe that he 
is a different one?" 

" You are most certainly mistaken," is your reply. 
" I am intimately acquainted with the history of the 
two gentlemen, and I assure you of the contrary." 

"I know very well that you are honest in your 
opinion," retorts the farmer with great composure, 
" but I know as well that you are mistaken; " and 
without admitting any further reply, he leads his 



36 



horse to the stable, where he now has arrived, and 
fully convinced of his infallibility in point of 
politics, he disappears within the walls of his 
cottage. 

Such are some of the results which a pedes- 
trian excursion into the heart of the German 
settlements presents to us. It is only from time to 
time that we meet with oases, as it were, in these 
fields, which are as barren and neglected in point 
of intellectual culture, as they are fniitful and 
abundantly productive in agricultural respects. 
There are a small number of institutions, which 
have been mostly founded by those who have been 
brought up in the midst of the Americo-German 
population, but who, by a constant intercourse with 
Germany, and with the most intelligent portion 
of the English community, have preserved them- 
selves free from the evil influences by which they 
are surrounded. They have founded seminaries 
and colleges, and have gradually gained the confi- 
dence of their German neighbors, whom they alone 
are able to approach. Their lectures are partly 
delivered in German, and partly in English, and 
the ministers whom they send forth are likewise 
taught to preach in either language. Such, for 
instance, are the institutions at Gettysburg, York, 
Nazareth, and in a few other places. In Gettysburg, 
particularly, a spirit of devoted piety, and an 
enlightened zeal, has been, and is now, exerted in 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 37 

behalf of the Americo-German population, though 
their progress is often obstructed by the very popu- 
lation which needs most the persevering efforts 
of these pioneers. 

It is out of the question to think of a strong feeling 
of sympathy, or of striking points of relationship, 
between the German emigrants who have enjoyed 
the common advantages of religious and intellectual 
cultivation, and those descendants of Germans who, 
by their language and peculiar situation, have been 
placed almost entirely beyond the pale of civiliza- 
tion. Seldom, indeed, have I felt so perfectly as a 
stranger in this fair land, as was the case on my 
visit to those " Germans." 

How very little attention is paid to the foreigners 
who settle in the United States, and to the German 
emigrants among the rest, we may judge from the 
fact, that the very name which is generally applied 
to the latter, is one which they have no right to 
claim. They are called " High Dutch," in contra- 
distinction to " Low Dutch," a term which is 
applied to tlie emigrants from Holland. The use 
of these terms probably originated in the fact, that 
the state of Pennsylvania was partly settled by 
German emigrants, who first arri\red in New York, 
but left that state, because they could not agree 
with 'the Dutch, who then occupied the greater 
portion of it. As they came from the region of the 
Dutch settlers, and resembled them in their religious 
3* 



38 



and social habits, and as the German appellation 
by which they introduced themselves, both in form 
and in sound, was similar to the word "Dutch," 
this latter term was very naturally applied to them. 
They, however, as has been partly observed before, 
spoke the Low German, which, as it is not a written 
language, and is principally spoken by the illiterate 
and uncultivated, has received various local modifi- 
cations in almost all the different states of Germany. 
The inhabitants of the Netherlands, on the other 
hand, though originally branching out from the 
Teutonic stock, have had a language and a litera- 
ture of their own for the last three or four hundred 
years, while at the same time the political and 
commercial relations of that country have combined 
to obliterate the traces of the German origin of this 
language. Neither the High German, then, nor the 
Low German, is understood by the Dutch, unless 
by the assistance of the grammar and the dictionary ; 
and the Dutch or Hollandish is likewise as ill 
understood by the Germans. 

Hudibras, indeed, asserts that the helpmate of 
the father of the human race was tempted by the 
serpent in High Dutch^ and the learned Dietrich 
Knickerbocker speaks of the tremendous and un- 
couth sound of the Low Dutch language of a 
certain crew of Low Dutch colonists ; and after 
having quoted the opinion of certain High Dutch 
commentators, he goes even so far as to assert that 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 39 

certain individuals have mentioned a man named 
Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons, or 
the Teutonic, or in other words, the Dutch nation. 

But that these and some other Enghsh writers 
have used "High Dutch" and "Low Dutch," in- 
stead of German and Dutch, cannot weaken the 
justness of the distinctions we have made, and 
which are supported both by philosophical research 
and by the strength of the best authorities. They 
have been infli^iced by a popular error ; for such 
it must be considered, so long as the distinctions 
which they have made do not present the true 
state of things, as it exists in Germany and. Hol- 
land, and while they are in spirit entirely opposed 
to the terms used by the inhabitants of those coun- 
tries to which they refer. It may not be irrele- 
vant to add that the term Deutsch, (nearly like 
Doitch,) and that of Dutch, by their similarity of 
form, shadow forth the true relation of the two 
nations to which they belong, just as we should be 
led to conclude, from hearing of "Britain" and 
" Bretagne," that the inhabitants of the two coun- 
tries had a common origin ; while the terms High 
Dutch and Low Dutch would lead us to inferences 
which are contrary to the actual state of the lan- 
guages to which they refer. They are neither two 
dialects of the same great stock, nor terms which 
refer to the same language, but to a difference of 
locality. 



40 THE stranger's GIFT. 

It is almost needless to add, after this short 
explanation, that all the intelligent and cultivated 
German emigrants and Americo-Germans, who have 
become intimately acquainted with the state of this 
population, combine in heartily desiring that soon 
this corrupt dialect of the German language, to- 
gether with all its evil consequences, may give way 
to the moral and intellectual light which, for more 
than a century, has been the source of incalculable 
blessings to those portions of the United States 
which have been brought under its influence. 

The picture which I have presented here to my 
readers is one of which, in a great degree, I have 
collected myself the necessary materials in the al- 
most immediate vicinity of Easton, Reading, Leba- 
non, Lancaster, and other towns, which originally 
were settled by Germans, but the population of 
which has now in a great measure become assimi- 
lated with the Anglo-American population, since 
for a long time past they have been with them in 
a constant intercourse. It is owing to the vicinity 
of these towns, and to the gleams of light which 
from thence are thrown in every direction, that 
some check is offered to the friends of darkness. It 
is very different, however, in the Western States, 
where a scattering and continually increasing for- 
eign population opens a wide and unrestrained 
field to the adventurous impostor. You may meet 
there with a Pseudo-Count de Leon, who came to 



THE AMERICAN GERMANS. 41 

the land of liberty to establish an independent hier- 
archico-monarchical society ; and though you may 
see his ultimate end frustrated, after he has com- 
pleted the ruin of many a deluded family, you will 
find perhaps some other adventurer more successful 
m keeping his fellow-men in intellectual and social 
bondage. 

But I refrain at present from enlarging on these 
deeply interesting topics, since I hope to extend my 
next pedestrian tour to the German settlements of 
the far West. 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 



My meaning, in saying he is a good man, is, to have you understand me, he is 
sufficient. — Shakspeare. 

Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book ; he has not eat 
paper, as it were ; he has not drunk ink ; his intellect is not replenished ; he is 
only an animal — only sensible in the duller parts. — lb. 



It is not uncommon to hear the opmion expressed, 
that in spite of the great influx of foreigners, which 
seems to increase with every year, they must soon 
loose their identity as a distinct community, since 
they are everywhere surrounded hy the American 
population, and after a few years of residence will 
always intermingle with them, and completely 
lose their individual character. Those, however, 
who hold that opinion, can know but little with 
how exclusive a spirit most of the emigrants rest 
not until they have arrived in the neighborhood 
of those who are similar to them in language and 
habits, and how the unfavorable influences of such 
isolated portions of society continue to operate, 
though for more than a century past there may 
have been no further emigration from the native 
land of their fathers. 

The present state of the Dutch population in the 
State of New York partly suggested, and partly con- 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 43 

firmed in my mind, the general truth of the view here 
expressed. However I might feel inclined to see in 
them but the living monuments of the past, which 
by the creative power of a great writer seem to have 
been elevated to his poetical sphere, and to have 
been surrounded Avith a bright halo, which you 
would almost think had emanated from them, I yet 
could not possibly forget that they are living monu- 
ments, and as such do not deserve only the atten- 
tion of the poet. 

Although I had never before approached the 
majestic Hudson, I had of course not remained an 
entire stranger to the various associations which its 
classical banks must excite in the heart of every 
true American. You cannot but remember the un- 
fortunate Antony, the sounder of brass, when you 
pass the place of his last exploit, where his restless 
ghost, according to the Dutch historian, is still said 
to haunt the surrounding solitudes, and to mingle 
the sounds of his trumpet with the howling of the 
blast ; though after you have passed the promontory 
which derives its name from Anthony's nose, and the 
various places, which owe their celebrity to Peter 
Stuyvesant of headstrong memory, you will more 
readily dwell on the historical events of which the 
Highlands remind you, and which then serve to 
throw all poetical associations into shade. This was 
at least the case with me when I was passing on from 
the spot, where the traitor's plans were frustrated by 



44 



the capture of Andre, to the important post where 
these plans had been conceived and developed. I 
Hngered for some time near this beautiful though 
sombre retreat of the Polish patriot, amid the ruins 
of the past — so rare an enjoyment in this youthful 
land, — and in the sight of so beautiful prospects, 
that even now, after having completed many 
other and extensive journeys, I cannot think of a 
place to which I would more willingly return than 
to West Point. I continued my journey up the 
Hudson in the evening, and could therefore quietly 
enjoy the beautiful visions of the past. Forests and 
cities, and all the pleasant views which the banks 
of the river present in the day-time, were now cov- 
ered by the dark veil of night ; and but here and 
there some feeble, flickering light might be seen, 
which from time to time directed us to some new 
landing place. 

It is at such moments, when the outward world 
gradually recedes from our view, when the objects 
which belong to external nature present themselves 
in dim and indistinct outlines, and serve only to 
afford new materials for the boundless activity of 
our imagination, — it is at such moments that the 
inward, the unseen world rises before us with all 
the glow and splendor of its infinite nature. The 
spirits of our beloved, who for a time seemed to 
have parted with us, as they have parted with all 
earthly joys, are mingling with the forms of far- 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 45 

distant friends, whom our mortal eyes may never 
meet again, but who are near us, as soon as we 
are ready to approach them ; and they bring with 
them the beautiful thoughts and never-dying hopes, 
by which we have become forever united. As the 
exhalations which rise from the earth are often col- 
lected in dense and far-extending clouds, and in 
sending down refreshing rains on the parched fields, 
prove grateful children of her who gave them birth, 
so do such glances into the past show us how, by 
the dev elopement of our own immortal being, we 
have become entwined with the lives of those who 
are dear to us, how we have grown rich ourselves 
in adding to their growth, and with a feeling of 
peace which surpasses all knowledge, we exclaim 
in the language of the poet — 

" Say, what binds us friend to friend, 
But that soul with soul can blend ? 
Soul-like were those days of yore. 
Let us walk in soul once more ! " 

Nor does the light of by- gone days and past 

joys only rend asunder the mists of the present ; it 

throws at the same time many of its rays on the 

path before us ; it teaches us to flee from the touch 

of all that is foreign and repulsive to our nature, 

and to preserve the chain unbroken which with a 

thousand sacred links unites us to the hour of the 

past. " The Prophet's mirror hangs far behind 

him ! " 

4 



46 



My musings were suddenly interrupted by the- 
cry of " Coxsakie landing," which reminded me 
that my turn of leaving the steam-boat had now 
come. Together with two or three other passen- 
gers, I was placed in the boat, lowered with 
incredible rapidity into the river, rowed to the 
shore, landed with my baggage, and helped into 
the wagon which was to convey me two miles 
farther. A few minutes after, the noise to which 
our arrival had given rise in the little village 
subsided, the several lights were extinguished, the 
fire-spouting "nostrils" of our steam-boat could 
hardly be discerned in the far distance, and I was 
left at full liberty to admire the combination of 
great speed and comprehensive arrangement by 
which the traveller in America is preserved free 
from many of the vexatious details which impede 
his course on the continent. 

The stillness of the night, and the smooth road 
on which our wagon now was moving along on 
the banks of the Hudson, seemed favorable to 
conversation if my driver should prove a social 
companion. I opened our intercourse by inquiring 
whether he could carry me to a Dutch landlord. 
He replied, there was a German tavern-keeper of 
high repute in Saugerties, the place of my destina- 
tion, who was a very wealthy and industrious 
man, and having resided for a very long time 
in this part of the country, he would no doubt be 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 47 

able to direct me to the Dutch inhabitants ; he hke- 
wise added, that his wife was from Dutch descent, 
and continued to enlarge on their good merits at so 
much length, that we had reached the door of the 
tavern before my driver had arrived at the end of 
his eulogy. 

It was on the following morning that I had the 
pleasure of introducing myself to my German host 
as his countryman. But for his hair strongly 
sprinkled with gray, you would not have thought 
of meeting, on his face, blooming with health and 
good nature, the marks which sixty-five winters 
might be expected to have left there. His active 
habits had probably preserved him from that em- 
bonpoint, which seems to belong to his office, and 
the readiness with which he attended to all your 
wants, seemed hardly to admit the thought, that it 
was habit only, and not necessity, which induced 
him to continue in his present situation. 

"A countryman of mine," exclaimed he in toler- 
able German, I am heartily glad to see you ; " then, 
interrupting himself, he communicated to his wife 
by the medium of the Dutch, the joyful tidings, that 
I was not merely descended from German ancestors, 
but that I had actually come from Germany, and 
turning again to me, he expressed his desire of 
being of service to me in a somewhat singular but 
characteristic manner. 



48 THE stranger's gift. 

"Certainly, (said he,) we must all die at some 
time or other, and whatever we have we must leave 
behind. I intended to work this morning on my 
farm, but I think it would be better if I were to 
introduce you to our domine, and afterwards take 
a round with you ; I assure you we have some very 
fine country here." 

It has been said that on account of the entire 
absence of ranks and orders in America, there is 
but little opportunity of seeking for distinction by 
associating with those who in quality are elevated 
above their neighbors ; and it is therefore the quafi- 
tity of them which is to make up for this defect ; you 
must know everybody, if you desire to pass for a 
truly popular man. My host did not seem to form 
an exception to this general rule, for he prided him- 
self of being acquainted with all the people whom he 
happened to meet. He would stop from time to time, 
and now address one in German, now in English, and 
now again in Dutch, listening to their ready replies 
with a certain affable and condescending inclination 
of the head, which plainly showed how conscious 
he felt of his own importance. 

" My horse and wagon are engaged," said he, 
when we had been informed that the domine of 
Saugerties was not at home, "but our neighbor will, 
no doubt, accommodate me, and I will carry you to 
the next domine." 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 49 

I readily consented, for 1 was desirous of becoming 
acquainted with intelligent and cultivated men, who 
for many years had resided in the immediate vicinity 
of the descendants of the Dutch. I was likewise 
well pleased with my companion, who I found had 
good reason to say, that '' it would be difficult for 
me to find, in or about Saugerties, another individ- 
ual, who could speak to me in such pure German, 
as he did." The dialect of the American Germans 
whom I met there occasionally, I could understand 
as little as that of the American Dutch ; but I cer- 
tainly did understand mine host of the Saugerties 
house, — though not always without difficulty. 

We started in our wagon, on one of those de- 
lightful mornings when the transparency and per- 
fect purity of the atmosphere seems to invest every 
beautiful object with additional charms. With 
every breath you draw, the peace, contentment, 
and supreme satisfaction which reign in your breast 
are heightened without your being able to give any 
reason for it, and without even caring for a reason. 
Such, at least, was the feeling with which, during 
the whole of that little excursion along the banks 
of the Hudson, I beheld at my left that perfect line 
of beauty in which the Kaatskill mountains are 
gradually rising, the numerous and ever-changing 
tints which the golden rays of the sun paint on the 
verdant meadows and forests with which they are 
covered, and the diadem of silvery clouds which 
4* 



50 



encircled their head, while on my right the undu- 
lating banks of the Hudson, with its variety of 
trees, flowers and shrubbery, presented from time 
to time some beautiful villa, surrounded by orna- 
mented gardens, or by a grove of shadowy elms. 
It was in the midst of one of these groves, and on 
an elevation which commanded an extensive view 
of the Hudson, that the country-seat of our domine 
was situated. 

With the exception of the immediate vicinity of 
Saugerties, there is probably no other place in the 
state of New York, where there is yet preaching, 
once or twice every month, in a corrupt dialect of 
the Dutch language. However well their ministers 
may speak Dutch, they are compelled to accommo- 
date themselves, in this respect, to their hearers, 
in order to be understood by them. There is of 
course no learned Professor Poddingcoft to be found 
among them, who might instruct the children of 
the Dutch through the medium of their own lan- 
guage. Many of them are therefore sent to En- 
glish schools. In general, however, they do not 
avail themselves of the advantages which the laws 
of the state of New York in regard to education are 
calculated to afford them. My host, who had trav- 
elled extensively, remarked with great justice that 
the almost entire absence of the academies and 
higher schools with which he had met in New 
England, had given a very different character to 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 51 

this portion of the United States. In short, though 
for many years there have been hardly any emi- 
grations from Holland, the distinct character of 
these descendants of the Dutch is yet so great that 
you often imagine to meet with the originals of 
the graphic pictures which Washington Irving, no 
doubt, has drawn from life ; with settlements where 
you would look in vain for a newspaper; with 
Dutch damsels, whose full forms and neat dresses 
are thrown into shade by the fumes of smoke 
which issue from their rosy lips, and with Dutch 
farmers, of whom you may well say " that they 
certainly will never do anything in a hurry." 

Similar causes have produced almost the same 
state of things on the opposite side of the Hudson, 
where the descendants of a colony of Germans are 
found, Avhich originally were sent out by Queen 
Anne. They occupy the districts of Germantown 
and Clermont, and have lived there somewhat iso- 
lated, becouse the German emigrants of a later 
date, unlike Queen Anne's colony, emigrated from 
Germany of their own accord, and had therefore an 
opportunity of selecting such lands as suited them 
best, and where they might hold their lands as 
proprietors, and not as tenants, as is the case with 
the greater portion of the descendants of the Dutch 
and Germans along the Hudson. 

Although this almost entire absence of emigration 
mto this part of the country has had a favorable 



52 

influence, these settlements are yet far from even 
approaching the intellectual and religious character 
of their American brethren. Many of them, after 
having lost the means of religious knowledge which 
the preaching in their own language afforded to 
them, are now without any instruction, since they 
are unable to understand Enghsh preaching. The 
darkness which is thus gathering round them is 
now denser than it ever was before, and there is 
but little reason to believe that the hour before the 
breali of day has arrived. 

In the course of a few days, I had become so 
well acquainted with my kind hosts, that when the 
time had arrived at which I intended to meet the 
steamboat, our parting terminated in a little scene, 
in which the younger members of the family played 
a very active part. During the whole period that 
I had made Saugerties the centre of my little ex- 
cursions, the beautiful and lively children of my 
host had always greeted my return with the loud- 
est manifestations of joy, and vied with each other 
in proving that though absent, I had not been for- 
gotten. They having now been told that I was 
not going to return very soon, one of the little girls, 
with rosy cheeks and fair curls, which in part con- 
cealed her sad blue eyes, laid hold on my hand as 
if she could not suffer me to go, and told me in 
pretty good German, that she would " always think 
of me, and if I would call again very soon, I should 



THE AMERICAN DUTCH. 53 

find her grown up, and ready to accompany me on 
my walks." 

There is something in the inexperienced eye 
with which the child looks upon the dimensions of 
space or the changes of time, which is exceedingly 
touching. If they see an equestrian leaping Avith 
great skill over two horses, they will tell you with 
great naivete, that they might leap over six if they 
chose ; and if you admire the quickness with which 
the billows of the river are carried along, they boast 
of being able to arrive in less time at the ocean than 
the swiftest river. Without experience, unconscious 
of the evil which it may have to meet on its path 
through life, and without a memory for the good 
which falls to its share, the child often plucks the 
wished-for flower to pieces, when a new joy is 
thrown in its way. It is, however, this absorbing 
enjoyment of the present, which makes a child's 
countenance, when brightening at the coming of the 
stranger, in many cases, the best thermometer of the 
degree of attachment by which he is united to its 
parents ; and often when, by conventional rules and 
worldly cares, their eyes have been dimmed and 
their sympathies made dull, the unsophisticated 
child recognizes and gladly meets the approach of 
a kindred heart, a childlike spirit. 



THE ENVIRONS OF THE MOHAWK. 



Es tragt Verstand und rechter Sinn 

Mit wenig Kunst sich selber vor, 

Und wenns euch Ernst ist was zu sagen, 

IsVs nbthig Worten naclizujagen ? Goethe's Faust. 

Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts 
It to utterance. — Shakspeare. 



The attention with which we ought to receive 
the first views of the traveller, depends as much on 
the preparatory knowledge and experience in life 
with which he sets out on his journey, as on the 
opportunities for observation which he may enjoy 
in the country which he visits ; but even he who, 
with a mind that is fully matured and developed, 
has availed himself conscientiously of all the means 
of information in regard to this country which a 
European has at his command, will often hesitate 
to communicate his first impressions to the world, 
since he cannot but observe that almost every day 
presents new aspects and important modifications 
of opinions and views which he thought established. 
If it should be out of the power of an intelligent and 
cultivated American to keep pace with the rapid 
changes which succeed each other in the difterent 
and far distant parts of the United States, if you 
should see him filled with astonishment, when, for 



THE MOHAWK. 55 

instance, a place like Buffalo, which twelve years 
ago was an insignificant and almost demolished 
village, endows in a few days a literary institution, 
in the most bountiful manner, how much more then 
ought a foreigner to hesitate in forming and express- 
ing general views concerning the state of this coun- 
try, after having resided in it for a few months. 

I had approached the thickly settled and well- 
cultivated environs of the Mohawk by the way of 
Albany and Schenectady. But rarely do you meet 
there with some ancient meeting-house and its 
mouldering steeple, the Dutch inscription of which 
reminds you of the time when the first settlers of 
this valley met there on friendly terms with the 
sons of the wilderness ; nay, all the recollections of 
the past seem to vanish from your mind, when you 
see the canal crowded with passenger-boats and 
packets, the public road along the banks of the 
Mohawk covered with conveyances of every descrip- 
tion, the constructing of a railroad rapidly advancing, 
and every kind of industry and agricultural labor 
progressing with gigantic strides. Little were the 
expectations realized — in which I had almost un- 
consciously indulged — of finding on this part of the 
Mohawk a great degree of tranquillity, peace and 
retirement. 

There are many who, like the emperor Hadrian, 
are fond of reading an interesting book while they 
hsten at the same time to a conversation of their 



56 



friends, enjoy the beauties of nature, see almost 
everything that is going on in their presence, and, 
in short, "have their eyes always open." They 
may without fear trust their persons to a canal- 
boat, since they will there have an opportunity of 
satisfying all their wishes. But there are others 
who see in a beautiful prospect more than a mere 
combination of field, forest and river; and their 
minds often seem to be so exclusively occupied with 
what they see and feel that they are lost to every- 
thing else. The involuntary state of abstraction 
and perfect unconsciousness to the outer world, in 
which they are thus placed, defies all exertions by 
which you may endeavor to rouse them. In this 
respect they are like those others — though perhaps 
their number is but small — who, when they have 
met with a good book, enter so fully into the spirit 
of the author, that they might be said rather to 
reproduce than to read the work. May they never 
enter a canal boat, since as often as they are on 
deck they will be in imminent danger of coming in 
contact with one of the numberless bridges, beneath 
which they cannot pass without making a profound 
courtesy or a formal prostration. But even those 
who belong to the first class, and foreigners particu- 
larly, who enjoy the happy gift of using at least 
two of their senses at the same time, as it were, 
will often be in imminent danger of losing their 
lives. I have been told — and there is much reason 



THE MOHAWK. 57 

for believing the account authentic — of a French 
gentleman who was occupied with his book on the 
deck of the boat, when the man at the helm seeing 
him near the bridge, told him in a loud voice to 
"look out ; " the Frenchman started up in order to 
look out, and to see what was going on, when the 
boat had reached the bridge, and he was instantly- 
killed, falling thus a victim rather to the wide differ- 
ence between the literal and figurative sense of the 
term "look out," than to his want of attention. If 
the canal-boats should be generally provided with 
steam engines, the danger will be greatly increased by 
the speed of the boat, since those who are not killed 
after having struck against one of these bridges 
have to ascribe it principally to the slow progress 
of the canal-boat. The bridges ought either to be 
raised or a prohibition issued against walking on 
deck. 

By retiring to the cabin, the traveller is indeed 
placed beyond the reach of all these dangers, but 
he is compelled at the same time to submit to many 
disagreeable circumstances which are peculiar to 
his new situation. The banks of the canal are 
often so very near the windows of the boat, that 
they exclude every distant view, and impress you 
with a feeling of restraint, which rises to a painful 
degree when the boat, in entering one of the locks, 
pushes against its walls with a noise which seems 
5 



68 

to threaten its ruin, though there is no actual 
danger. Besides these somewhat disagreeable cir- 
cumstances, which prevent the traveller from en- 
joying a tour on the Mohawk in one of these boats, 
it is principally the character of the great mass of the 
population along this canal which alternately excites 
the most lively sensations of pity and disgust, since 
it is the lowest portion of the Irish population, 
with which he becomes here acquainted. They 
confirm him in the conviction, if indeed he wanted 
confirmation, that the large mass of the population, 
who become naturalized in this country, remain 
foreigners in the most important sense of that term. 
A minute discussion, however, of this important 
subject, is as little suited to the narrow limits of this 
volume, as it is in harmony with the spirit of hope 
and joy, which we would endeavor to preserve 
uninterrupted on Christmas eve. I hasten, then, 
without further delay, to carry my readers to the 
city of Utica, where I left the boat without much 
regret. 

After a short ride from Utica, which from many 
an elevated point has presented 3rou with fine views 
of the town and the surrounding country, a scene 
of deep repose unfolds itself in the same degree 
as you are approaching the Rural Resort, as the 
hotel near Trenton Falls has justly been called. 
As soon as you have alighted, you are received by 



THE MOHAWK. 59 

the twilight shades of a heautiful forest, through 
which a path leads you to the chasm. 

It is not, however, to the cascades, but to the 
gigantic and singular character of the rocks, tower- 
ing up before you, that your attention is then princi- 
pally attracted. In walking along the narrow path 
between the foot of these rocks and the margin of 
the stream, you meet now with castellated walls 
and high towers with their battlements and loop- 
holes, and now find yourself suddenly placed before 
the immensely massive columns of some ancient 
temple, in which all the varieties of architecture 
seem combined ; while at some distance a little 
hermitage, perched apparently on the high rock, is 
peeping from the midst of its verdant enclosure, and 
immediately near you on the banks of the stream a 
magnificent pulpit, constructed of circular masses 
of rock, seems to be waiting for the spirit of the 
waters, whose voice you hear, and whose preaching 
has hushed every evil thought within you. These 
are no far-fetched and fanciful similes. Together 
with a hundred other as different and as beautiful 
pictures, they present themselves to you almost at 
every step; now perhaps reminding you of the 
contrast between the idea of the infinite and your 
own transitory existence, and now again by their 
beauty and loveliness inviting you to seek there a 
permanent home. 



60 



THE STRANGER S GIFT. 



Behold here a tree, which mysteriously growing 
up from amidst the crevices of the rock, stretches 
down its longing arms to the dashing stream: 
though far above the surface of the water, its crown 
is almost bathing in the silvery foam : thus it con- 
tinues constant in its devotion, until it is rewarded 
at last with a grave by the side of the same 
stream with which it has vainly striven to be 
united during its short life of unsatisfied endeavor. 
Truly does that tree bear testimony of the long- 
ing of the spirit within you after Him who alone 
can quench its thirst forever. The CabbaUsts, as 
well as Swedenborg, were right in a certain sense 
when they said, that all that exists on earth does 
also exist in heaven. There is a prophetic voice 
speaking in that tree, and you experience the fulfil- 
ment of the prophecy in your heart. 

Or look at this long file of cedars on the top of 
the rock. They all have turned their evergreen 
branches to the genial light o^ the sun, and like so 
many floating pennons, seem to be placed there in 
honor of the triumphant coarse of the stream. Is it 
indeed only a simile, if we say that like these wav- 
ing pennons, the soul of man longs to turn to the 
sun who has given light to it ? Do we not rather 
meet here with one of the numberless analogies 
which unite the spiritual and natural world, and 
which we should find to exist in all the works of 
the latter, if our eyes were first unsealed 1 



THE MOHAWK. 61 

Such thoughts have probably suggested them- 
selves to many of those who have visited these 
scenes with minds susceptible to their elevating, 
ennobling, and — I may well use the term — spir- 
itualizing influence. They did not confine them- 
selves to inquiries concerning the geological order, 
thickness or color of those rocks, but found there 
more than the visible world presented to them. 

They have also felt with us, that if on that beau- 
tiful spot many an earthly object may be said to 
assume an emblematical character, and to be in- 
vested with a reality which it wants in itself, on 
the other hand, the prose realities of this world 
intrude themselves in so unexpected a manner that 
every thought of beauty and sublimity seems to 
vanish. The dashing waves of one of the most 
picturesque waterfalls, for instance, are made sub- 
servient to the wants of a saw-mill, which is 
erected on the banks of the stream, and which, by 
its unseemly appearance, and by its character of 
humble utility, forms a most ludicrous contrast 
with the sublime scenes by which it is surrounded. 
Those who have it in their power ought to prevent 
such desecration of one of the most beautiful spots 
in the country, and preserve the visitor of Trenton 
Falls from an unpleasant interruption of his enjoy- 
ments. The same remark we might apply with 
equal justice to the narrowness and shortness of the 
walks. Mountaineers and others, who have been 
5* 



62 THE stranger's gift. 

much accustomed to gymnastic exercises, may 
climb at the peril of their lives two or three miles 
farther than the usual walk extends. Up to Boon- 
bridge they Avill find the character of the rocks 
equally grand and varied, and many beautiful falls 
which deserve as greatly the attention of the visitor 
as most of those which are now generally accessible; 
but to the female world all these scenes are of 
course hidden treasures. We might add, that such 
an improvement of the means of access would pro- 
bably induce many to continue at the Falls for a 
longer period than is now generally done, and the 
question whether they are not principally attracted 
by the excellent table at the Rural Resort could be 
more satisfactorily answered, than it is at present 
possible, when most of the visitors arrive shortly 
before and leave immediately after dinner. If we 
see at Saratoga Springs, or some other fashionable 
watering place, the beau monde assembled for many 
weeks from almost all the different parts of the 
Union, and then approach a beautiful retired spot 
like Trenton Falls, and are told by the public 
album, that they have been there like passenger 
birds hastening home, we feel inclined to embrace 
the opinion that a true love of natural scenery can 
hardly be a prominent feature in the national char- 
acter of the Americans. 

But it is, perhaps, their fondness of rapid and 
uninterrupted motion, which prevents them from 



THE MOHAWK. 63 

indulging their taste for the beautiful in nature. 
Unequalled quickness, and a developement that is 
unceasing in its progress, belong certainly to the 
most striking elements of American life. Quick, 
indeed, has been their growth from a few weak 
colonies into a powerful body politic, and quick is 
the motion of every limb of that body. Quick is 
their rotation both in office and in wealth, and with 
greater quickness still are they hastening into matri- 
mony. Early marriages are here as frequent as 
German courtships of five or six years' standing 
are rare. Their very amusements are characterized 
by quickness. Whilst Rome had its gladiators, 
and Spain its auto-da-fes, America is satisfied 
with a self-moving locomotive. The beauty of 
the American fair, and that of field, forest and 
meadow, unfold themselves with the same ra- 
pidity. Now if quickness is thus manifested 
everywhere, should travelling alone be excepted 
from if? And after they have seen in less than 
three weeks the Falls of Niagara and Trenton, the 
White and the Blue hills, the natural bridge in Vir- 
ginia and the artificial one at Washington, — is it 
astonishing, that they should find it necessary to 
rest for some time at Saratoga Springs ? 

But no ! — This topic is too important and se- 
rious to indulge any longer in pleasantry or satire. 
It is only the patient study of nature, which can 
lead you to a right miderstanding of it and fill 



64 THE stranger's GIFT. 

you with true love for it. And without it, you 
can but little know with how exquisite a feeling of 
delight the Stranger has experienced what Shak- 
speare perhaps has only thought^ when he says — 



How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank. 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night, 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 



Without it — with all your astonishing and almost 
miraculous progress in every branch of the useful 
arts, and every kind of mechanism, how much of 
elevating enjoyment, of quickening and refreshing 
feeling, do you lose on your restless course through 
life! 

In speaking of the very desirable extension and 
improvement of the walk on the margin of the 
Trenton falls, we ought to mention him who under 
God has been most conducive in presenting these 
falls to the public eye. It was John Sherman, the 
grandson of Roger Sherman, one of the signers of 
the Declaration of Independence and a member of 
the first Congress, who first discovered and made 
known the beauties of Trenton falls. As I have 
seen the falls only at a season of grept drought, I 
am induced to present to my readers the following 
extract from Sherman's description, which, as a true 
disciple of Yale, he closes with a short exegetical 
treatise on the creation of the world. 



THE MOHAWK. 65 

" The view of these falls," says Sherman, " varies 
exceedingly according to the plenitude or paucity of 
the waters. In the autumnal floods, and particu- 
larly the spring freshets, arising from the sudden 
liquefaction of snow in the northern country, the 
river is swelled a hundred fold, and comes rushing 
in a vast body of tumultuous foam from the summit 
rock into the broad bason at the bottom. It is at 
this time tremendous indeed, and overpowers man's 
feeble frame with the paralyzing impression of om- 
nipotence." 

Though you may justly complain, that his words, 
full of meaning and power, are sometimes breaking 
upon you like the cascades of Trenton, without 
your being prepared for it by the gradually increas- 
ing current of particles and adjectives, — he ob- 
viously possessed deep poetical feeling and a strong 
love for natural scenery, which sometimes breaks 
through all his far-fetched images. We cannot but 
love him, when after one of his powerful attempts 
at poetical description, he exclaims — 

" Forgive me. Nature ! — I have merely attempted 
to illustrate my own conceptions. Others, I know, 
are far more competent to minister in the gorgeous 
temple of thy praise ! " 

No, honest Sherman; it is the devotion of the 
heart, and not that of the head, which is to minister 
there, and in that respect few are better qualified 
than thy own humble self. 



NEW ENGLAND. 



But answer undissembling ; tell me true ; 

Who art thou ? whence? where stands thy city? where 

Thy father's mansion ? In what kind of ship 

Cam'st thou? Why steered the mariners their course 

To Ithaca ? and of what land are they ? 

For that on foot thou found'st it not is sure. Cowper's Odyssey. 

I do beseech you, 

(Chiefly that I might put it in my prayers,) 

What is your name? Shakspeare. 

"Welch Gewerb treibt dich 

Durch des Tages Hitze den staubigen Pfad her? 

Bringst du Waaren aus der Stadt 

Im Landd herum?- 



In a country like ours, of which the ItaUan 
"lasciar far" seems to be the most appropriate 
motto, and free and voUuitary action one of the 
most striking features, the pecuUar and very dif- 
ferent characters of the first settlers has naturally 
produced so powerful an influence on their descend- 
ants that even at the present day, it is everywhere 
visible, and will remain so for many ages yet to 
come. He who has visited in rapid succession the 
descendants of the Germans in Pennsylvania and 
Ohio, of the Dutch in New York and New Jersey, 
of the Scotch in North Carolina, of the French in 
Louisiana, and of the English in the New England 



NEW ENGLAND. 67 

States, will probably think with us that only after 
the greatest familiarity with the early history of 
America, can the traveller arrive at a very satisfac- 
tory opinion concerning its present state, and the 
causes to which it owes its distinct and individual 
character; and that the practicability of applying 
the simple principles on which the government of 
this country is based, must necessarily depend on 
the degree of knowledge and morality to be found 
among the different classes of its population. 

1 was impressed in a very lively manner with 
the truth of these remarks, when, shortly after my 
excursions into the interior of the states of Pennsyl- 
vania and New York, I made a short journey through 
some of the New England states. We meet no longer 
here with the mistaken views concerning the rela- 
tions of religion and society which gave rise to the 
promulgation of the law " that no one shall be a 
freeman or give a vote, unless he be converted, and 
a member in full communion of one of the churches 
allowed in this Dominion." "Quaker and Adamite" 
are no longer left without food or lodging, and the 
aversion to the established church, which caused 
the pilgrim fathers to proclaim that no one should 
read common prayer, or keep saints' days, and 
which induced them to include even Christfuas 
day in this general condemnation, has given way 
to a more liberal and tolerant spirit, which does 
not pretend to make religious belief and prac- 



68 



tice subject to human legislation, as long as it does 
not interfere with the rights of others. 

But in abandoning those mistaken views of the 
original settlers, many of their peculiar and endear- 
ing customs are faithfully retained, and serve as a 
sacred bond of union between the present and the 
past. It is from this point of view that the Stran- 
ger regards with deep interest the day which sees 
all the members of a family collecting around their 
head, in order to join in the enjoyments of social 
intercourse, and to dwell with a filial spirit on the 
day when their forefathers, with thankful hearts, first 
assembled around the festive board. From similar 
reasons, the custom of devoting Saturday eve to 
contemplation aud religious exercises has been en- 
deared to him, — a custom which prevails in most 
of the New England states ; and when he hears 
the chiming of the bells in the evening, he sympa- 
thizes with the sons of New England, who are re- 
minded by that sound of the hour when their fore- 
fathers ceased from their labors, and with a prayer- 
ful spirit committed their cares to the Lord. 

It was not, however, by these religious customs 
alone, that on my first tour through New England 
I was strongly reminded of the peculiar character 
of the original settlers of this part of the country. 
In the political and social life, as well as in many 
personal peculiarities of the New Englander, you 
recognize in various forms that spirit of fearless 



NEW ENGLAND. 69 

inquiry, of daring enterprize, and of incessant in- 
dustry, which characterized the pilgrim fathers. 

On a fine spring morning, and at that quiet hour 
when 

" The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, 
And 'gins to pale his ineifectual fire," 

I had started on foot from Hartford, with the inten- 
tion of visiting some of the most interesting places 
in New England. The quotation might he applied 
Uterally to my case, when, by a sudden turn of my 
road, I had come in sight of a host of fire-flies, which 
were now rising in sparkling clouds, and now in 
serpentine flights partly disappearing in the forest, 
so that I found it at first somewhat difficult to per- 
suade myself that it was not a conflagration which 
I saw before me. Soon, however, I felt at home 
among these bright and quiet companions, particu- 
larly as they seemed to be the only inhabitants of 
the silent forest. In Germany at that season of the 
year, and at that hour, it is the nightingale which, 
with her most plaintive and soul-like tones, seems to 
express a conscious regret in giving up her dominion 
to the lark, which, gradually rising in a beautiful 
spiral line, ushers in the new morn with a triumphal 
hymn. 

The American forests, like the Americans them- 
selves, seem to be without national music and song, 
and many of the beautiful references to the inhabi- 
6 



70 THE stranger's GIFT. 

tants of the air with which we meet in the English 
poets, can but Httle interest the American, who is a 
stranger to those birds, while they remind the Ger- 
man of the delightful hour in which at home he 
listened to their songs. It is probably owing to this 
circumstance that the mocking-bird, the " Magnus 
Apollo " of the American forest, has been called the 
American nightingale, though this bird is almost 
entirely wanting in originality and individuality, 
and copies his fellow beings with so little dis- 
crimination, that whilst now, perhaps, you listen to 
his sweet imitations of the robin or the thrush, you 
may hear him, in the next moment, barking like a 
dog. 

The light of the morning presented to me a series 
of pictures, which were not wanting in novel and 
very striking features. The numberless meeting- 
houses, which in New England far more than in 
other parts of the Union are generally adorned with 
spires and steeples, remind the traveller here again 
of the religious spirit by which the community is 
pervaded, and by the power of which, all these in- 
stitutions of the gospel are supported by voluntary 
contributions. The neat school-houses which are 
seen from time to time at some distance from the 
road, and the very appearance of teachers and 
scholars, seem to speak well of the attention paid to 
elementary instruction, and almost at every step in- 
stances of the active and enterprising spirit present 



NEW ENGLAND. 71 

themselves, by which the New Englander is enabled 
to avail himself of every opportunity of improving 
his situation, and of adding taste and comfort to the 
necessaries of life. 

I had not proceeded very far on my journey, when 
I was joined by another pedestrian, who with very 
little ceremony introduced himself to me as a child of 
New England. " I know it is a Yankee question," 
said he, ''but I cannot help asking, where do you 
come from 7 " Having been set at ease by the readi- 
ness with which I replied, he did not fail to express 
various suppositions and inferences concerning my 
person. My knapsack, and two books which I 
carried in my hand, induced him to believe that I 
was engaged in selling some popular work ; the 
admiration with which I spoke of the beautiful 
scenery on the banks of the Connecticut, made him 
exclaim, in a voice that bespoke his anticipation of 
success, " Surely you are a painter ; " and finally, 
when I happened to make some inquiries about 
the state of the public schools, he expressed the 
positive conclusion, that I must be a teacher ! 

I was more pleased than astonished or vexed 
with this inquisitiveness, since it was not by any 
means confined to personalities. Wherever we meet 
with a scattered population of active mental habits, 
without the means of acquiring extensive informa- 
tion, we shall find the same characteristic feature. 
Ulysses is always found ready to satisfy the ques- 



72 



tions addressed to him ; and Paul, without even a 
shadow of reproof, avails himself of the inquisi- 
tiveness of the Athenians, to lead them to the 
cross of Christ. It is this feature in the New 
England character, which, under the influence of 
a high degree of cultivation, and divested of 
selfishness by the power of religion, or the habitual 
intercourse with good society, strongly resembles 
the ease and readiness with which strangers Icom- 
municate in Germany, and which is often productive 
of the most interesting meetings, the most intimate 
friendships. It is owing to the entire absence of 
distinct orders, and to the great conflux of foreigners, 
which gives, as it were, a compound national char- 
acter to this country, that this pleasing feature in 
the social tendencies of the Americans does not 
manifest itself with the same freedom as is the case 
in other countries ; but it must become more promi- 
nent, in the same degree as the higher circles of 
society become more distinct and exclusive; how- 
ever different the basis of this distinction may be 
from some of the continental countries. 

In returning now once more to our New Eng- 
lander, we ought to remember that it is owing to 
his fondness of inquiry that we find it perhaps more 
easy in New England than in any other part of the 
Union, to obtain important information concerning 
the different relations of public and private life, and 
almost every subject of general interest. 



NEW ENGLAND. 73 

My companion, at least, did not form an excep- 
tion to this rule. Having ascertained that I was 
then on my way to New Haven, he directed me to 
visit the grave of the judges of Charles I., who were 
hospitably received by the colony, when compelled 
to leave England ; he spoke of the dangers to which 
they were exposed, when they were pursued by the 
soldiers of Charles H., and of the happy manner in 
which their minister interested his flock in their be- 
half, by addressing them in the language of Isaiah — 
*' Take council, execute judgment, make thy shadow 
as the night in the midst of noon-day ; hide the out- 
casts; betray not him that wandereth. Let my 
outcasts dwell with thee, Moab ; be thou a covert 
to them from the face of the spoiler." He even 
described the cave in which the judges were con- 
cealed, and the bridge beneath which they found a 
safe retreat, while their pursuers were riding over 
it to continue their idle search; and finally, con- 
cluded with the remark, that even until the present 
day their grave-stones had been left untouched, 
while all the others had been removed. By these 
and many other interesting details, I was not only 
assisted in entering deeply into the spirit and char- 
acter of the community to which he belonged, but I 
likewise found that many of my views in regard to 
the early history of New England were both modi- 
fied and enriched by his communications ; and I 
was more than ever confirmed in the conviction, that 
6* 



74 THE STRANGER'S GIFT. 

the stranger must literally intermingle with all the 
classes of the people, if he wishes to enter into their 
modes of thought, and into the causes by which 
their views of life have been formed. It is by such 
a course, and not by confining himself to the study 
or the saloon, that in a christian spirit he will have 
a right to adopt the well-known motto — ''I am 
a man, and feel akin to everything human;" 
that in the heart of America he will meet with 
aged men who are intelligent as well as contented, 
and little inclined to ask, in the language of the 
French citizen — '^ Can we not be a little more equal 
than our friends?" and with young men who are 
ready to say, in the spirit of Telemachus — 



" Shame bids the youth beware 
How he accosts the man of many years j 



that he may see a servant who combines the dignity 
of a republican with the devotion of a Caleb, parting 
from his hosts, who, in spite of the general influence 
of their occupation, have preserved a warm heart 
beating in their bosoms. After a few days of ac- 
quaintance, they have become so much attached to 
him, that they cannot bear the thought of being left 
without further news from him ; and their new 
friend, in return, readily promises to "drop them a 
line." In short, on such excursions among the people 
you may meet, again and again, with a spirit of 
<' Gemiithlichkeit, Sinnigkeit und Innigkeit," — to 



NEW ENGLAND. 75 

which the Germans sometimes, though unjustly, 
claim an exclusive right, because their language 
alone is able to express it. Truly, indeed, says the 
great poet — 

*' All places that the eye of heaven visits, 
Are to the wise man ports and happy havens." 

In the city of '' brotherly love," and in that of 
'' elm trees," on the peaks of the Highlands and in 
the cottage of the New England farmer, you may 
often, like the traveller among the Lotophagi, feel 
" at home," and experience without regret that 
the recollections of the happy hours which you 
have spent on the banks of the Connecticut, or the 
Hudson, are imperceptibly and delightfully min- 
gling with your reminiscences of the Rhine or — the 
Pregel ! 

It was shortly after my arrival in New Haven 
that I became more intimately acquainted with 
some of the modifications and alterations, which 
the enactments of the early settlers had undergone. 
In the same state, where once the drum, the trum- 
pet, and the jews-harp alone were allowed to be 
played, German ballads set to music, and accom- 
panied by the piano, are now frequently heard from 
American lips, and are received with general favor. 
When Schubart's composition of the Erlkonig^ for 
instance, was once sung and played in the presence 
of several Americans, one of them exclaimed, with 



76 THE stranger's GIFT. 

great enthusiasm and true feeling — " Who can hear 
this without being deepl}^ moved ?" — and paid thus a 
genuine tribute to the poet and composer, as well as 
to the performer, a lady from Philadelphia, who with 
a kindred spirit had deeply entered into their joint 
production, and thus unconsciously shown, that 
though without national music, the American may 
sometimes feel consoled by the poetical power with 
which he transposes himself, as it were, into the 
musical life of other nations. 

The stranger who has once visited New Haven, 
cannot but dwell again and again on the enlightened 
and well-directed taste for almost every branch of 
science, which pervades the community in general, 
and the great attention paid, particularly by the 
female world, to German literature and music. In 
the language of Madame de Stael : — ''On mene 
dans cette campagne nommee ville une vie reguliere, 
occupee et serieuse, on n'y degrade jamais son 
esprit par des interets futiles et vulgaires." 

The following translation, in which the spirit of 
the original is most happily preserved, was prepared 
in New Haven by the lady of whom 1 have spoken 
above, and will serve to prove the truth of our re- 
marks, as in part they have been suggested by it. 
It was originally published in the Christian Specta- 
tor, with the explanatory remarks preceding it. 



THE LOST CHURCH. 



[The poet is speaking of the tradition respecting a lost Church, and the occa- 
sional sounding of its bell. In this tradition lie finally recognizes the spirit of 
martyrdom and self-devotion, of that deep and fervent, all-pervading piety which 
once characterized the church ; and in the sound of the bell, he hears the voice of 
conscience, whose tones of solemn admonition are reverberating in undying faith- 
fulness.] 



Far in the forest's thickly wooded green, 
The sound of bells is heard, as from above ; 
The rush of waters to the dark ravine 
Sweeps not more wildly ; — yet can none remove 
The mists which ever hang upon the sound, 
And e'en tradition is in silence bound. 

From the lost church, 't is said, the chime is borne, 
And by the wind to this dark forest brought ; 
The path deserted now, defaced and torn, 
How many travellers once with ardor sought ! 
To the lost church the narrow pathway led, 
But every vestige of that path has fled. 

As late I wandered to that leafy shade, 
Where trodden path no longer marks the sod, 
My soul against corruption seemed arrayed ; 
I wept, and longed to find a home with God ! 



78 



In this lone spot, the bell's mysterious voice, 
With hollow murmurings, seemed to say — Rejoice ! 

Darkness and silence hung on all around ; 
Again I heard the deep and solemn chime, 
And as I followed the unearthly sound, 
My soul, exalted, left the things of time ; 
Thou holy trance ! e'en now I cannot tell 
How all my being rose beneath that bell. 

An age, it seemed, had been vouchsafed to me, 
To dream the clouds of sin and sense away ; 
Clear as the light, a space unbounded, free. 
Above the mists, unclosed with brightest day. 
How bright that sun ! how deeply blue that sky ! 
And there a minster stood in sanctity. 

It shone resplendent in the gorgeous ray, 
And winged winds seemed bearing it afar ; 
The steeple's point had vanished quite away, 
Far, far beyond the light of sun and star ; 
Yet still I caught the ringing of that bell, 
With sound more sweet than ever words can tell. 

Yes, from the steeple they came floating by. 
Yet not by mortal hand the peal was given ; 
It breathed of light, and love, and harmony, 
Moved by the blessed violence of heaven. 
The very sound seemed near my heart to beat, 
And drew within that splendid dome my feet. 



THE LOST CHURCH. 79 

Oh ! how I felt within that sweet abode ! 

The windows darkly gleamed with antique hue, 

The mystic light o'er painted martyrs glowed, 

And into life the holy portraits grew : 

Upon a world of sainted ones I gazed ; 

I heard the hymn the noble martyrs raised. 

Before that altar I devoutly bowed, 
And deepest love my all of being filled : 
Upon the ceiling heaven's image glowed ; 
That golden glory every passion stilled. 
But see, the arches of the dome are rent ! 
Up to the gates of God my eye is bent. 

The splendors of that mighty dwelling-place ! — 
Those shining walls ! — the crystal fountains there ! 
And wonders which a creature dares not trace I — 
But let them move the sinner's soul to prayer. 
Oh ! ye to whom that solemn bell shall ring. 
Take heed, and listen to its murmuring ! 



THE GERMAN EMIGRANT. 

Viewing thee, no fears we feel 
Lest thou, at length, some false pretender prove, 
Or subtle hypocrite, of whom no few. 
Disseminated o'er its face, the earth 
Sustains, adepts in fiction, and who frame 
Fables, where fables could be least surmised. 

Cowper's Odyssey. 

However impossible it may be to obtain an exact 
statistical view of the German emigrants in this 
comitry, since they are regarded as American citi- 
zens after they have resided a few years among us, 
and have submitted to certain prescribed forms, it is 
well known that thousands and tens of thousands of 
these emigrants are spread over most of the States 
of the Union, and that every year brings many new 
settlers to our shores, who disperse over this country 
as seems to be best suited to their several occupa- 
tions. But though in numerical respects you may 
find it difficult to arrive at any degree of certainty, 
it is much more easy to become acquainted with 
many prominent features of their general character. 
Whether you see them as pioneers, struggling 
through every difficulty, and overcoming every 
obstruction — or whether you visit them, when 
collected in families and quietly enjoying the fruits 
of their agricultural labors — or whether, finally. 



THE GERMAN EMIGRANT. 81 

yoii meet with the German merchant and mechanic 
mingUng in the larger cities with the American 
population — they enjoy everywhere the reputation 
of being a hard-working, temperate and honest 
people, little inclined to give way to temptations to 
which the lower classes of society are generally 
exposed, and highly suspeptible to those religious 
and intellectual influences which they have enjoyed 
at home. However attached they may be to each 
other, and to their native land and language, they 
are found ready to adapt themselves to the customs 
and habits of the country of their adoption, to ac- 
quire its language, and to take a share in the vol- 
untary burthens which are inseparable from our 
state of society. It is to this spirit that the Ger- 
man Charitable Societies owe their origin, to which 
I once more direct the attention of my reader, since 
they serve as effectual and important means of 
bringing about the virtual naturalization of the for- 
eigner, of making him a useful citizen in every 
point of view. The fundamental principles laid down 
by these societies differ in general very little from 
each other, but the spirit in which these principles 
have been applied by the German Charitable Society 
of Boston — to whose Board 1 am indebted for the 
details here communicated — and various regulations 
which have been suggested by the peculiar situation 
of its members, call for a more particular reference, 
and deserve to be generally known and recommended. 
7 



82 



Having been formed by the German residents in 
that city, "without regard to pohtical or rehgious 
parties, — as their constitution expresses it, — with 
the object of exciting among themselves a fraternal 
spirit ; to supply the needy and newly arrived 
with advice and employment, and the sick and 
feeble with pecuniary assistance; " the society has 
succeeded in fostering, among its members, a lively 
feeling of sympathy, and a strong impulse to ad- 
vance its object, by establishing an intelligence office, 
"for the purpose of advertising for labor and la- 
borers, and of collecting and communicating all 
possible information in regard to the intercourse of 
the German emigrants and the native Americans." 

It is owing to this intelligence office, and to the 
ad\rertisements connected with it, that many new 
and important ties have been formed between them 
and their American fellow citizens, and that they 
have been encouraged and animated to persevering 
efforts in discovering and relieving their suffering 
countrymen. As soon as an honest journeyman or 
active laborer happens to be thrown out of employ- 
ment, or as often as a German emigrant arrives 
from another part of the country, and is capable of 
satisfying the Board in regard to his character, the 
society pledge themselves to the public 'in regard 
to his conduct and capacities, and in general, ob- 
tain very readily a suitable place for him. They 
thus confer a greater benefit on the community and 



THE GERMAN EMIGRANT. 83 

the individual than could be done by the most 
munificent donations ; for, as President Wayland 
justly observes, "in general those modes of charity 
are to be preferred, which most successfully teach 
the object to relieve himself, and which tend most 
directly to the moral benefit of both parties. And 
on the contrary those modes of charity are the 
worst which are farthest removed from such ten- 
dencies." Again, by receiving not Germans only, 
but also native Americans as members, the Society 
has opened a way by which the foreigner is intro- 
duced at once into the bosom of the community, in 
which he is to play an active part. It is by this 
regulation, that many little prejudices to which 
various foreign customs may naturally give rise are 
effectually removed ; that the intelligent and culti- 
vated among the German population are enabled to 
become the interpreters — not of the language only — 
but of the true meaning of many national peculiari- 
ties in the character of their countrymen, which the 
American sometimes regards as dangerous merely 
because they are different from his own. Thus the 
honest man who, perhaps, has been falsely accused 
or calumniated by some unprincipled countryman 
who envies his success, is freed from every suspi- 
cion, and enabled to go on without obstruction in 
his honest labors. 

But if in this manner the society seems to 
have taken very judicious steps in order to in- 



84 THE stranger's gift. 

crease and strengthen the sympathies between its 
members and that community by which they are 
immediately surrounded, they have hkewise taken 
some preUminary measures to form a regular inter- 
course with other German societies in the different 
parts of the Union ; so that those Germans, who wish 
to exchange one place for another, or to emigrate to 
the West, may not be entirely beyond the reach of 
their friends, if their situation should call for their 
assistance. '' The Germans," we Avould say with 
Professor Miihlenfels, " will be found admirable 
fathers, virtuous members of society, loyal subjects, 
eminent scholars, but — careless citizens ; " referring 
thus to their political character ; — but we would add 
at the same time that they are far from being incor- 
rigible; that it is in our power to make them useful 
also in this respect, and that those Charitable Socie- 
ties are an important means in realizing this object, 
by uniting the emigrant and his host in labors of 
love. Indeed, it seems hardly possible that by his 
own endeavors the foreigner should become capable 
in the short space of five years to discharge faith- 
fully the duties of a citizen of the United States, 
after he has lived for thirty or forty years imder a 
monarchical form of government, and when arrived 
in this country, has been separated to a great extent 
from the rest of the community by a difference of 
language, or prevented by incessant labor from ac- 
quainting himself with the peculiar character of this 



THE GERMAN EMIGRANT. 85 

government. It seems impossible, I say, in regard 
to the German emigrant, who is generally capable 
and willing to assimilate with his neighbor, without 
divesting himself of his individuality, and it is cer- 
tainly impossible in regard to those foreigners, who 
with an unbending and exclusive spirit keep aloof 
from every change in the national views and pecu- 
liarities which they imbibed in their own country. 
"Let the Americans beware, (says a well-known for- 
eigner,) of extending the rights of citizenship indis- 
criminately to foreign emigrants ;" and although there 
is often something in such laconic warnings addressed 
to a whole people, which savors of Shakspeare's " I 
would croak like a raven, I would bode ! I would 
bode! " it cannot prevent us from adding, that until 
the naturahzation laws shall be changed — which 
indeed may never be the case — let us engage in en- 
lightening those to whom we extend these privileges. 
It is likely, indeed, that in less than half a century 
the Germans in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Vir- 
ginia will be almost entirely absorbed by the Anglo- 
American population, as has been the case partly 
with the Dutch in the State of New York, and with 
the Swedes in Delaware ; but it will be caused by 
very different reasons. It is not owing to an entire 
ceasing of new arrivals, but to the fact that the great 
mass of the emigrants now direct their course to the 
far West, where this division of language and feeling 

must be perpetuated. 

7# 



86 tHE stranger's gift. 

But in tracing the consequences of the entire 
neglect of these strangers, we cannot shut our eyes 
against many favorable indications, which show us 
with how much interest this subject is generally re- 
garded. Men of the most different views in religion 
and politics have shown a perfectly catholic spirit 
in regard to the duties which Americans owe to them- 
selves with reference to the foreigner. You meet now 
with one who has adopted the gifted child of some 
indigent family, with another who is rather a friend 
than a master to his German servant, and with a 
third who devotes his leisure hours to the instruction 
of the foreigner. They cannot forget, that in this 
free country there are many who, from causes over 
which they have no control, remain strangers even 
to the meaning of the word Freedom ; they cannot 
regard the mere physical well-being of the emi- 
grant, nor the fact that he has formally abjured his 
allegiance to every foreign power, as sufficient to 
make him a useful citizen in a republic. 

It will be readily understood that the Stranger is 
much more able to become acquainted with the 
wants of his countrymen than with the means by 
which these wants may be satisfied ; and it is 
therefore with diffidence that he closes this chapter 
with the inquiry, whether the usefulness of the 
Public Schools in the principal cities of the Union 
might not be greatly increased by the addition of 



THE GERMAN EMIGRANT. 87 

an Anglo-German branch, in which the children of 
the German emigrants might be instructed through 
the medium of the German language, until they 
are capable of proceeding with their American 
companions. 

The emigrants, when they arrive from Germany, 
I repeat it, are ready to avail themselves of the 
means of religious and intellectual cultivation, as 
soon as they are placed within their power; but if 
no steps are taken to preserve them under such in- 
fluences, they and their children cannot but degen- 
erate. 



THE STRANGER'S HOPE. 



As the hart pantelh after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O 
God. — Psalms xlii. 1. 

In the midst of the realms of existence, there is a sun, which sustains and pre- 
serves everything j and there is an eye, which is itself of sun-like nature, and 
made for that sun. The Sun is God ; the eye is the soul. 

Neither the terrors nor the dread, which come to man on the wings of the storm, 
or in the thunder of the avalanche, or the eruptions of the volcano, — it is not these, 
which have first proclaimed to him, that there is a God ; nor is it from the starry 
heavens, — letters, as it were, of his creation, — that man has derived this knowl- 
edge. Deep as the longing, which, in the new-born babe, calls for the mother, of 
whom it yet knows nothing; loud as the crying of the young raven, after food 
which he has never yet tasted ; strong and intense as the urgency with which the 
eye, when unsealed, or the plant, when breaking from its capsule, seeks the light, 
which they have never before felt ; — such is the longing which I feel through my 
whole being, for the living fountain of all being, from which I jhave derived my 
existence. 

Should I take the wings of the morning, and fly where the last waves of the 
visible world are lost ; should I descend into darkness, where there is no star, 
where tlje cries of anxiety, the loud manifestations of joy, nay, where even the 
softest breathing of life, is no longer heard ; and should I remain there, alone and 
solitary, yet I should feel that He upholds me ; I should perceive his nearness, like 
the rustling of the eagle's wing in the stilly night; I should perceive something 
within me, on which it rests ; so is there a desire within my bosom, which takes 
its way through the midst of the creation, unto God. 

Translated from v. Schubart. 



It was in the early part of the spring of the 
present year, when at a social meeting of several of 
the German residents in Boston, among other top- 
ics, that of religion was touched, and the fact 
stated that with the exception of domestic devo- 
tions, they were almost entirely beyond the pale of 
religious influence, since they had found neither 



THE stranger's HOPE. 89 

time nor opportunity to learn English enough to 
understand the whole of a discourse ; a fact which 
can hardly excite our astonishment, if we remem- 
ber that in general most of those emigrants who 
speak a foreign language, become intimately ac- 
quainted with the various terms which belong to 
every-day life, while they learn but very little of 
the language which refers to their internal and 
spiritual life. There had been several exertions 
made by them to satisfy their longings after re- 
ligious knowledge, and the edifying influence of 
social worship. The pious father of a family might 
be seen to collect on the Sabbath his children and a 
few friends, in order to unite in singing German 
hymns, and in offering up a prayer in their native 
language. Instances of this kind, however, were 
but very rare, and the great majority of the Ger- 
man population were almost without the light of 
the gospel, though they might not be wholly igno- 
rant of the treasure of which they were thus de- 
prived. We may infer this at least from the ready 
manner with which they assembled around one of 
their countrymen, when they were told that he was 
able and willing to assist them in the right under- 
standing of the Bible. Availing themselves of the 
spiritual hospitality^ with which they were treated 
by their Christian brethren, they began to hold regu- 
lar meetings. With every new Sabbath, the interest 
with which they regarded the continuance of this 



90 THE stranger's GIFT. 

Bible class was more strongly manifested, till finally 
the power of the gospel, applied to their hearts in 
their own mother tongue, prompted them to express 
an ardent desire of organizing a society, that they 
might secure to themselves the means of religious 
instruction. 

It now became obvious that the various obstruc- 
tions and difficulties which sometimes threatened 
to interrupt their meetings, and which even the kind- 
ness of their friends could not entirely remove, had 
been sanctified to their hearts as so many trials, by 
which they were to experience that "the poor in 
spirit are blessed." The wish above referred to 
seemed the more deserving of attention, as experi- 
ence has but too often taught us that individual 
influence in such cases is but of comparatively small 
importance, if no means are taken by which the sev- 
eral members may be enabled to exercise a regular 
and mutual influence on each other. As most of the 
individuals concerned had in their youth, by con- 
firmation, become regular members of the Lutheran 
Reformed or Evangelical churches in Germany, it 
was thought proper to adopt the principles of the 
latter as the basis of the religious views, since the 
Evangelical Church is formed by a union of the 
Reformed and Lutheran churches. My readers are 
probably aware of the fact, that in Prussia, and in 
several of the lesser states of Germany, a kind of ec- 
clesiastical compromise has taken place, between the 



THE stranger's HOPE. 91 

Reformed or Cab/inistic and the Lutheran churches. 
The latter have generally abandoned Luther's 
view of consubstantiation, while the rigidity with 
which Calvin proclaimed the doctrine of predes- 
tination, is but little approved of by the Germ^an 
Calvinistic divines of the present day. From the 
works of Schleiermacher, and of his successor, 
Tiresten, my readers may become acquainted more 
particularly with the character of this union. The 
governments under whose auspices it has taken 
place frequently evince so tolerant a spirit in regard 
to these three denominations, that at one time you 
may meet with Evangelical divines presiding over 
Lutheran flocks, while at another the reverse will 
take place. The membership of the several in- 
dividuals belonging to any particular church, as in 
the time of the apostles — though not always in the 
spirit which characterized that time — is decided by 
their habitual attendance and worship with it, 
after they have once passed through a preparatory 
course of religious instruction, and publicly con- 
firmed the vows made for them in their infancy. 

Under the charge of a faithful minister, this ad- 
mission of members by confirmation furnishes him 
with the means of influencing directly and pri- 
vately, every one of the younger members of the 
flock, and he has thus an opportunity of in- 
creasing the kingdom of the Redeemer, which 
those denominations do not enjoy, who are with- 



92 



out this early course of religious instruction. 
It is my own individual experience, and the in- 
fluence produced on a little class which is now 
preparing for admission to the society in Boston, 
which has confirmed me in this view. 

As several of the Evangelical societies in this 
country are connected with the German Lutheran 
Synods, and as common religious opinions and a 
common language form a natural tie between these 
two bodies, the society resolved to send a delegation 
to the next meeting of the Synod,which took place at 
Clermont in the state of New York in the beginning 
of the month of September, with a view of making the 
necessary arrangements for the proposed connection. 
It was then that the missionary committee of that 
Synod — agreeably to the request made to them 
— sent one of their ministers to the orphan flock in 
this city, that they might have preaching in their 
own language, and partake of the Lord's supper 
as they had been wont to do in their native land. 

Schmucker, in his Popular Theology, a work 
which we recommend to those of our readers who 
wish to become more intimately acquainted with 
the relations of the Lutheran church in this country, 
after having spoken of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, 
and Congregational churches, remarks in regard to 
the Lutheran church, as found in the United States, 
that it is eclectic in its nature ; "it embraces all 
those principles and precepts, of permanent obliga- 



93 



tion, which are contained in the New Testament, 
and such other regulations dictated by reason, best 
adapted to the genius of our free repubhcan institu- 
tions, and calculated most successfully to advance 
the cause of Christ. The fundamental features of 
this system are the following, viz. 1. Parity of min- 
isters. 2. Co-operation of ruling elders as repre- 
sentatives of the church. 3. Union of the churches 
within the limits of a synod for the regular purposes 
of review and government. 4. Special conferences 
for the purpose of holding stated protracted meet- 
ings." 

In point of government, then, the Lutheran 
churches combine some of the elements of the Pres- 
byterian and Congregational churches, while in their 
mode of admitting members, in their liturgies, the 
observance of festivals, and other peculiarities of 
less importance, they approach the views and cus- 
toms of the Episcopal church. 

An infant society, like that of Boston, might justly 
expect to derive great advantages from the advice 
and the exertions of the numerous body of German 
Lutheran divines in this country ; and the fraternal 
and truly christian spirit with which the Boston 
delegate was received at Clermont, did not disap- 
point them in these expectations. The synod im- 
mediately consented that one of their number 
should go to Boston, in order to become inti- 
8 



94 THE stranger's gift. 

mately acquainted with the wants of the society. 
Being afterwards informed that they were desirous 
of having the minister, with whom they had thus be- 
come acquainted, permanently settled over them, the 
members of the synod took immediately the neces- 
sary preparatory steps for freeing their colleague, in 
the course of next spring, from his present engage- 
ments, and of assisting the society in other respects 
as long as they should be in want of assistance. 

It must be principally ascribed to the want of 
connection between church and state, that in the 
United States, perhaps, more than in any other 
country, the slightest difference of opinion in mat- 
ters of religion tends to produce immediately an 
external separation between the differing members. 
Without entering at present upon the causes or the 
character of this spirit, we shall confine ourselves 
to say, that its existence would have perhaps suf- 
ficed to induce the members of tlie German society 
to preserve the little peculiarities which distinguish 
them from other sects. They were, however, in- 
fluenced by far more powerful motives in continuing 
to worship the God of their fathers in the manner 
which was peculiar to them. The German emi- 
grant is to be won over to the service of the Lord, 
not only by hearing the gospel preached in his own 
language, but by recognizing in this stranger-flock 
the same characteristics with which he had become 
acquainted in his earliest youth. Regarding the 



THE STRANQEr's HOPE. 95 

subject from this point of view, we may consider 
the very name which these foreign societies bear as 
a matter of no trifling importance, be that name 
Lutheran, Reformed, or Evangehcal. But while 
they are decided in adhering to those forms, and 
in professing those views, which have been sanc- 
tioned to them both by habit and their individual 
convictions — while they hope to manifest a spirit 
which is hostile to indifference in regard to the 
most important of human concerns — and while they 
confidently trust that by this course they shall secure 
to themselves the favor of God as well as the respect 
of their fellow men, they would at the same time 
earnestly strive to preserve in their hearts a spirit 
of christian tolerance, which must lead them to 
respect the religious views and professions of others, 
however diflerent they may be from their own. 
''Judge not, that ye be not judged," saith the 
Lord. 

After this short historical sketch of the German 
Evangelical Society in Boston, my reader is perhaps 
desirous of knowing what they are to do until next 
spring, whether they continue to be instructed in 
the Bible, or whether they are left once more with- 
out any other resource except their private devo- 
tions, together with various other questions, which 
the situation of such a society may naturally sug- 
gest. 



96 



" Lo, the winter is past, (said the few to each 
other, when first assembhng,) the rain is over 
and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth, the 
time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice 
of the turtle is heard in our land ! " But their 
rejoicings were yet heightened when they were led 
to turn their eyes from the external world, where 
they felt, that together with their numbers their in- 
terest in the cause of Christ was rapidly increasing ; 
and when the autumn had gone by, and its fruitful 
trees and well-stored granaries had been emblems 
to them of the spiritual fruits which they had borne, 
they again turned to each other saying — " The grass 
withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away, but 
the word of the Lord shall stand forever." Every 
Sabbath you may hear them unite in prayer, and 
in the singing of German hymns, while the want 
of an organ is supplied by the voluntary labors of 
three or four German amateurs; you may see 
them listening attentively to the biblical explana- 
tions of their teacher, or if sickness should prevent 
him from being present, to some well-selected 
printed sermon, read by one of their number. 
Availing themselves thus faithfully of the means 
of grace which they enjoy at present, they look 
forward with love and longing to the time when 
they shall enjoy all the religious privileges to which 
they had been accustomed at home. Their minis- 
ter will preach to them partly in English and partly 



97 



in German, and those Germans who have inter- 
married with natives will no longer be compelled 
to go to different places of worship on account of 
their difference of language. Nor is their resolution 
to have English preaching in their church the only 
proof which they have given of their readiness to 
assimilate themselves to the Americans. But a 
few days ago, for instance, they assembled to lis- 
ten to the governor's proclamation, which had 
been translated for them into German ; and though 
many of them, unlike their American hosts, are 
here without a family circle with which they might 
unite in thanksgiving and praise, they were con- 
soled by the consciousness that they felt towards 
each other as members of the same family, as the 
^'children of God;" for ''our conversation," they 
said, "is in heaven, whence alone we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." 

It is not in accordance with my feelings and 
views, to attend foreign service with a view of 
acquiring a knowledge of the language in which 
it is held, but I do not hesitate to say that 
every American should at least once in his 
life enter a place of foreign worship. He will 
there meet with the most healthful portion, the 
true elite of that foreign population : and he 
will learn to respect them. They have prayed 
with Agur — ''Give me neither poverty nor riches, 
but feed me with food convenient for me;" and 
8* 



9§ 



their prayers have been granted. Their very 
faces show that they are men of humble hearts, 
whose ''pursuit of happiness" consists partly in 
the grateful, unassuming spirit with which they 
receive even the slightest favor conferred on them, 
and in their earnest endeavors to guard themselves — 
to speak in the language of Dana — against " that 
tyranny of opinion which leaves to no man the free- 
dom of his own thoughts; that prying spirit, which 
mouses him out in his most secret retirements ; and 
that meddling disposition, which puts shackles upon 
the freedom of all his acts." 

But, perhaps, you would know, reader, whether 
they are entirely without sore trials, whether there 
is nothing to disturb this continuation of heavenly 
joys, whether the children of God are not often 
filled with grief and compassion at the foolish 
course of the worldling? 

Though you may not find in this little flock the 
external wall of separation which in many of the 
New England congregations exists between church 
and society, the internal division between those 
who only attend these meethigs because their hearts 
re-echo the chime of bells, as it were, which 
comes to them from their "lost Church," and those 
others, who relying for heaven solely on a Saviour's 
blood, indulge the hope, that, justified by their 
faith, they are the children of God, is probably 
equally great, and as familiarly known to their 



THE stranger's HOPE. 99 

teacher ; nor are the latter, who cannot regard this 
passing world as their only treasure, without many 
peculiar temptations ; but they have found, and 
they hope to find consolation and comfort under all 
the trials imposed on them in that blessed faith 
which they profess. 

Even now you might almost imagine to see a 
tear glistening in their eyes, and a smile of resigna- 
tion passing over their sad countenances, when you 
hear them complain with a voice of deep sadness, 
that at a time when in Germany all the spiritual 
influences, to which the heart of man is accessible, 
seemed to be concentrated, they are to remain with- 
out the preached gospel, without the reviving 
power of the holy ordinances, brought near and im- 
pressed on their hearts by the medium of a lan- 
guage which they can understand. But even at 
such times they are not left without hope, for they 
remind each other again and again, that this is the 
last Christmas which they are to spend as an orphan 
flock in a foreign land. 

After havi]ig joined you, kind American reader, 
in celebrating the day which has secured to you — 
as is devoutly to be hoped — the enjoyment of politi- 
cal independence ; after having met you with hearts 
full of gratitude in the presence of Him, who has 
prospered you in almost all the enterprises in which 
you have engaged since that memorable day, we 
now indulge the hope that you also will not disdain 



100 

to enter into our Christmas joys. It is on this day 
that we celebrate a world's deliverance from misery 
and sin, and that we offer thanks and praise to Him 
who '' will have all men to be saved and come to a 
knowledge of the truth." We have told you, that 
particularly on this day the images and pictures of 
the past are rising before our inner view, but that we 
experience at the same time that a gleam of hope is 
thrown into the time to come. It is with this de- 
lightful consciousness that we now take leave of you, 
reader. It is with the hope that this little flock, which 
the Holy Spirit has planted here, may under His in- 
fluence be watered and abundantly strengthened and 
increased by the shepherd who is to take charge of 
this flock, that every one of its members "may 
be encompassed within the gentle enclosures of 
redeeming love," and that finally they may be foimd 
among the thousands and thousands who are say- 
ing — "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to re- 
ceive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength j 
and honor, and glory, and blessing \ " 
This, reader, is the the Stranger's Hope. 



CONCLUSION. 

It has been said of Goethe, that he never entered 
upon a new enterprise without being fully con- 
vinced that he should be able to carry it through. 
I should heartily rejoice if I had imitated the pru- 
dent course of the great poet in regard to this little 
volume. I need not state explicitly, that it is the 
spontaneous production of a few leisure hours, and 
that from want of time its pablication has been 
much hurried, since my reader has no doubt be- 
come aware of it from various defects in style and 
manner. And yet I would not ask his indulgence 
on account of the imperfect form in which this 
little Gift is presented, without at the same time 
expressing the hope, that the Christmas spirit in 
which these pages have been written will dispose 
him to regard them with the eye of a friend rather 
than a critic. It is likewise owing to want of time, 
that I^have been prevented from developing satisfac- 
torily many of the views, the expression of which 
a sense of duty did not permit me to delay, and 
from adding others which it was my intention to 
communicate; though I hope to find, in the course 
of next year, an opportunity of embodying them in 



102 THE stranger's GIFT. 

another "Gift." To direct the attention of the 
stranger's Friend to the situation of the emigrant, 
who often arrives friendless on our shores, and to 
draw closer — as far as may be in my power — the 
intellectual bonds, by which at present this country 
is united to the land of my birth, are two of the 
principal though not the only ends I have proposed 
to myself in reference to this little publication. 

The somewhat peculiar manner in which my 
views of life have been formed has put me in the 
possession of facts, and has permitted me to make 
observations which I wish to communicate to my 
fellow men, because I believe that they may be 
benefited by becoming acquainted with them. 
It will not be very difficult then, I hope, to ex- 
press what I am certain I ought to say. At one 
time the simple historical style may prove the most 
successful, at another time the garb of fiction may 
serve to make palatable some wholesome but un- 
welcome truth; while in a third case, perhaps, 
faithful translations from our distinguished writers 
may be found the most successful means of ad- 
vancing my views. 

But it is time now to bid you farewell, kind 
reader. May you feel at this season of joy that " it 
is more blessed to give than to receive ; " a truth 
which I have experienced at my own heart in 
preparing this Christmas Gift for you. May you not 
be without a hospitable roof, if you should ever 



CONCLUSION. 103 

sojourn in a foreign land, and, when at home, may 
you be mindful of the beautiful advice, addressed 
to you in the sacred volume — " Be not forgetful to 
entertain strangers, for thereby some have enter- 
tained angels unawares." 



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